LJ Maas - Rebecca’s Cove

“What would you do if I said I knew where to find her?” “Kiss you.” Baylor grinned before growing serious. “Then

grovel, I guess.”

“Help her confront her fears. She is a master at sweeping her emotions into a corner. If you’re serious about this girl, you have to make her admit to it. In the end, it will be worth it. One more thing.”

Baylor turned.

“Don’t do this unless you really are serious about committing to one woman and helping to raise a son. You’ll do harm to everyone, yourself included, if you don’t know yet whether this is what you want.”

Baylor nodded slowly, her brain working overtime. “Hobie is what I want, her and everything about her. Noah, this island, these crazy people—all of it, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get her.”

Evelyn’s smile fairly lit up the room. Her happiness at that moment had nothing to do with her hopes for Baylor’s future on Ana Lia. Rather, it came from seeing her only grandchild finally become the woman she had always hoped she would one day be.

“Very well then. I think you’ll find Hobie Lynn at the west end of the building. There’s a small atrium across from physical therapy. She loves flowers. You’ll also discover that she is as miserable over her actions as you were.”

Baylor smiled from ear to ear. “Thanks, Tanti!” She was almost out of the door before Evelyn’s voice stopped her.

“Wait a minute!” Evelyn pointed to her own cheek. “Aren’t you forgetting what you just promised?”

“Oh, yeah.” Baylor blushed and came back to her grandmother’s bedside. She leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on the old woman’s cheek. “Thanks, Tanti. I’ll be back. You’re the best.”

“Yes, that goes without saying,” Evelyn said as Baylor rushed out the door.

The entrance to the atrium was through stained-glass doors, making it look more like a chapel. As Baylor approached, she saw a small plaque bolted to the wall. It read, “Many thanks to Evelyn Warren for the design and funding of this special part of our hospital.”

Baylor smiled to herself. It figured that Evelyn was responsible. How she knew Hobie would be there, Baylor couldn’t guess. She silently pushed open the door. Sure enough, Hobie sat alone on a stone bench near a bubbling water fountain. Baylor stared open-mouthed at the beautiful surroundings. It was a miniature version of the greenhouses Evelyn had at home. There were even some small birds flitting among the branches.

Baylor’s plan was to quietly walk up to Hobie, who appeared lost in her own thoughts. She stepped into the room and was startled by a loud squawk. “Jesus Christ!” she cried out, swatting at a brightly colored macaw on its perch. The bird raised its wings and squawked again.

Hobie quickly turned to see the exchange. “That figures,” she muttered. She turned away. “What do you want?”

“I, um, I guess I came to find you...to apologize.” “Apologize?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why on earth would you want to apologize to me?”

Baylor looked surprised. She had expected Hobie to be mad, but this seemed like something else. “Um...because I like you. I care about you,” she said uncertainly.

“You shouldn’t.” “Huh?”

“Care. I’m not worth it.”

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“I disagree. Look, Hob, I’m confused. Why do you sound so weird?”

“If you’d known me long enough, it wouldn’t sound weird at all.” Hobie wore a bittersweet smile.

“I don’t get it.”

“I’m mad! All right?” Hobie stood and crossed to where Baylor stood. “I’m just mad!”

“At me?”

“No, at me,” Hobie said. “You’re just...in the way.”

Baylor concentrated on not smiling. She had a feeling that it would only make Hobie angrier, but it was so hard to keep a straight face. Hobie looked too damn cute. Even if Baylor had wanted to remain angry, she couldn’t resist that face. “Can I do anything to help in this war you seem to have going on between you and you?” Baylor couldn’t help it. She smiled the tiniest bit.

That action brought about a much-needed change in Hobie, whose features relaxed for a moment until her brow furrowed. Suddenly, she covered her face with both hands.

“I’m so sorry, Baylor. I didn’t mean those things. I didn’t mean any of it. I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t want to see you again, I can be such a bitch. I—”

“Honey, honey.” Baylor moved to envelop Hobie in her arms. “It’s okay. You know, I did have a small part in all of that nonsense.”

“No, no.” Hobie shook her head as she buried her face against Baylor’s chest. “I’m just that way. I can be such a failure.”

“A failure at what?”

“I don’t know. Life. Everything.”

Baylor pulled away slightly to look at Hobie. She lifted Hobie’s face and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Okay, calm down. All right? I don’t understand. You’re probably the most successful woman I’ve ever met. You’re an MD and a DVM, for God’s sake. What do you mean you’re a failure?”

Hobie took a deep breath. “Can we sit?” “Absolutely.”

Once seated, Hobie didn’t look up at Baylor. She didn’t feel as though she could admit to that part of her past with those soft

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Rebecca’s

Cove

gray eyes looking at her. It touched her heart when Baylor gently grasped her hands and silently waited for her to begin.

“I was pretty idealistic as a kid. I guess it really intensified after Dad died. I had a rough time with it, but I hid that from everyone. Inside, though, I promised myself that I would never let some other kid go through what I had to go through. Like I said, pretty idealistic.”

“I don’t have a hard time picturing that,” Baylor said.

Hobie smiled. “I guess I’m not too terribly different than that little kid that everything came so easily for. Maybe I was too smart for my own good. I suppose I thought I could do anything I put my mind to. Maybe it didn’t help that I graduated from high school at sixteen and a half.”

“You really were a whiz kid, huh?”

Hobie smiled. “Yeah, I was one of those pain-in-the-ass kids you read about. Studies came too easy to me. I sped through my education, and when it came time to choose my career path, I went with a branch of medicine that suited my character. I wanted to become a surgeon. I had no idea I would turn into such a failure.”

Baylor could only stare at the woman seated next to her. “How did you do it? How were you able to change so much? You seem so happy and self-confident. You say you failed. Do you mean at medicine?”

Those questions made Hobie feel better. Baylor hadn’t judged her or dismissed her, but simply accepted what Hobie had told her as the truth. Accepted and desired the same sort of change in her own life. To Hobie, that was the most beautiful part.

“It started my third year of med school when I was seeing patients. I started to realize that it wasn’t about me. It was about the patients and their families, and I could make a difference. I could save these people, keep them from going—”

“Keep them from going through what you went through,” Baylor said, squeezing Hobie’s hands. “That’s a noble impulse.”

“Yes, it was, at first. But after my surgical rotation, when I started saving lives, I felt like…like I was God, almost. I held people’s lives in my hands. I could choose whether they would

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live or die. I thought I could cheat death.” She laughed bitterly. “Can you imagine the arrogance?”

“I’m sure that’s not uncommon among surgeons,” Baylor said.

“No, it isn’t. But then I gave up. I came home. I had just finished my first year of residency when I started to feel...I don’t know exactly. I think it was about the time I lost my first baby. We did everything for her, but she was just too small and weak. She got a postoperative infection and died in the middle of the night. I failed at the one thing I swore I would be good at. I finally had to accept that no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t save everyone. I started to see the faces of patients I lost, and I heard their families crying in the waiting rooms.”

“So that’s when you gave up medicine and came back to the island?” Baylor asked.

“No. I changed to a family practice residency program. I thought it would be better there and it helped for a while, but then I had a terrible month I went on code after code, and unfortunately, that’s when I started to drink. At first, it was just a couple of glasses of wine when I came home at night, something to relax me. It escalated to the point where I would just drink until I could look at myself in the mirror, look at myself and not see a complete failure staring back. That usually meant until I passed out. It didn’t last long enough to become a major problem. It was only a couple of months before I realized I didn’t want to live that way. I finished up my residency, then I came home.”

Baylor smiled in understanding, having undergone some amazing changes herself since living on the island. “It was Ana Lia, wasn’t it? That changed you.”

“I guess that’s as good an explanation as any. I felt so lost by the time I got back home. I had no confidence or ambition of any kind. I was in limbo. I think it was a gradual process. The kind of thing where you can’t really look back and identify the exact point where it all changed. I started to get involved in people’s lives, listening and accepting. Goofy little things like starting a flower garden or helping out at the grade school. One day, I woke up and realized that I liked myself. I also had a few conversations