LJ Maas: Rebecca’s Cove

Her brow furrowed as she wondered how she would explain to BJ exactly what happened. Her stomach twisted into an even tighter knot as she thought of who BJ was. How could she be Evelyn’s granddaughter? God, how could you do this to me?

The butterflies started another aerial attack in her stomach as Hobie entered the small surgery area of her office and saw BJ’s unconscious form lying on a table. She had given her an injection, and BJ had fallen asleep almost immediately.

Hobie’s hands uncharacteristically shook. She thought again of what had gone on in Chicago and how she would introduce herself to BJ when she awoke. She shook her head to dispel the negative energy. That was all it took to bring her focus back to the situation before her. She took a deep breath and began.

“I’m all finished here...Is she coming out of it yet?...Okay, don’t rush her...Lor, let me see that x-ray one more time...be careful of that hip...no, but she has a pretty nasty bruise there...”

BJ heard the soft voice of the woman from the hotel. Who is she talking to, and why are there other people in the hotel room with us? I remember that spicy, subtle scent of her perfume... God, how good she felt in my arms.

The perfume disappeared as a harsh antiseptic odor took its place. Where in the hell am I? An older, feminine-sounding voice replaced the gentle one in BJ’s mind.

“Baylor? Baylor? Wake up for us now.”

“Don’t call me Baylor,” BJ rasped, then coughed.

“Here, hon. Take a sip.” BJ felt a straw placed between her lips and she drank the cool liquid greedily.

“Not too much, Cheryl. Let’s make sure she’s back from Never Never Land first,” Hobie whispered over Cheryl’s shoulder. “Try calling her BJ.”

“BJ, open your eyes,” Cheryl instructed.

BJ did as she was told, mainly to find out what kind of dream she was having. As soon as she did, she was sorry. It was as if light and her ability to feel pain were connected. The day’s events came rushing into her conscious mind as quickly as the pain registered with her brain.

“Oh, God!” she groaned.

“Shouldn’t she have something more for pain, Doctor?” Cheryl turned to ask.

“Not yet. The shot is going to have to hold her for a bit. Lor, call Mack and tell him she’s awake.” Hobie turned back to Cheryl. “I don’t want to drug her up any more until we know exactly what we’re going to do with her.”

“Where in the hell am I?” BJ called out.

Cheryl was the first to answer. “You had an accident and broke your ankle. The doctor set and cast it for you. You’ll still be a little groggy from the anesthetic. We didn’t give you any more than you’d have for a tooth extraction, but the doctor figured you’d be more comfortable that way. Everything is just fine now.”

“I consider that a matter of opinion.” BJ leaned up on one elbow and looked down at the white plaster monstrosity attached to her leg up to mid-thigh. “So who is this Dr. Kildare who set my leg?”

Hobie knew it was now or never. She stepped forward into BJ’s line of sight. “Um, that would be me.”

BJ furrowed her brow. The woman looked familiar. “And you are?”

Hobie wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. The question took her by surprise. In one hurried epiphany, Hobie understood she’d been granted her reprieve. BJ no more recalled Hobie than she remembered how many vodka gimlets she drank that night in Chicago. That realization didn’t exactly make Hobie happy. It should have, but at the same time, she was a little miffed, vacillating between profound thankfulness for her continued anonymity and righteous indignation for being so forgettable to BJ Warren.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hobie said once she realized that BJ was staring at her unamused. “HobieAllen. Look, I’m so sorry for—”

“So, Doc, besides being in complete agony, what’s the damage here?” BJ groaned, not having grasped what Hobie was trying to say.

“Well, you broke your ankle. I set and cast it.”

“Gee, can you try not to throw so much technical jargon at me all at once?”

Hobie arched an eyebrow. “All right. Technically, you suffered an oblique fracture of your fibula with the dislocation of the foot. It’s commonly called a Pott’s fracture. It’s a common injury. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the most frequently injured areas of the ankle joint. It was rather textbook. About three inches from the ankle, you had a fracture to the fibula. In addition, the medial malleolus was broken off, but luckily the end of the tibia was not displaced from the corresponding surface of the talus. At the same time, the foot was everted and the muscles in the calf drew up the heel. I repositioned the foot by flexing the leg at right angles with the thigh, which relaxes all the opposing muscles, and by making extension from the ankle and counter-extension at the knee.”

BJ leaned on one elbow and stared in silence for a few seconds. “You know, nobody likes a show-off.”

“Sorry.” Hobie tried not to smile. She attempted to come up with a plausible explanation for what had happened and how she had been involved. She was growing sick to her stomach from the worry and decided to tell BJ the truth. Unfortunately, before she could come up with a sparkling and witty way to put it, the matter was pushed into the light by her patient.

“You look familiar. Where did you graduate from, anyway?” BJ grumbled.

“Where did I what?” The question took Hobie by surprise. She’d been so focused on explaining the circumstances of the accident that she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

“You’re not going to say you didn’t graduate, are you?” BJ managed a smirk, even though the pain in her ankle had most of her attention.

“Of course not. I happen to be a fully licensed physician. But—”

“No, don’t say but. See, whenever there’s a but, there’s bad news afterward.”

“Well, it’s not like that, but—” “See, there’s that word again.”

“Okay, let me take another route with this.” Hobie rubbed her sweaty palms along her rough cotton scrub pants. She knew exactly why she was so nervous. Breaking the news to this woman was going to cause fireworks. Hobie knew it. She would tell BJ that she had been responsible for hitting her, then BJ would tell her grandmother, then Hobie’s medical license wouldn’t be worth a nickel.

“You are a doctor, right?”

“Yes, I’m a very good doctor.” Hobie wondered if she sounded as defensive to everyone else as she did to herself.

Cheryl and Laura exchanged glances with Hobie. Laura shrugged as if to say she couldn’t understand why their patient was so obsessed with Hobie’s credentials.

“You see, in a way, I’m actually two doctors.” Hobie smiled and was about to make the jest she used with all her patients.

“In a way? Like in the ‘I went to medical school and graduated’ way? Or the ‘I got my degree out of a box of cereal’ way?”

At that moment, an ear-splitting squeal pierced the air. It was evident that the howl wasn’t human. The sound came from the outer waiting room and left all four women in the surgery area in silence.

“What the fuck was that?” BJ shook her head as if the anesthesia still held her in its grasp. The squeal had sounded like a pig.

“Don’t worry, that’s just our next patient,” Cheryl said.

It wasn’t until that moment that Hobie realized BJ had no idea what kind of a doctor she was. Hobie took it for granted that everyone knew. When she looked up, BJ Warren was staring daggers at her. Hobie cringed. She could see her life falling apart in front of her.

BJ took in her surroundings as if for the first time. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on here?”