Pure Iron

by Bargo, Holly

  The tip of a straw was placed on her tongue. Her lips closed reflexively around it and she sucked. One swallow. And the precious liquid was taken away.

  “Water,” she repeated.

  The straw returned and she took a sip, let it rest on her tongue before swallowing. The straw was pulled back and she lacked the strength to pursue it.

  “Water.”

  The straw returned and she took a third drink.

  “Baby, you’re awake!” a beloved voice whispered brokenly near her.

  With enormous effort she turned her head in the direction of the voice and blinked hazily at the face that went with it. She blinked several times and then asked, bewildered, “Do I know you?”

  “That’s not funny, Sonia,” a stern voice chided from the other side.

  “She’s not joking,” the first man said, his haunted eyes searching her blank ones. He voice caught on a sob, “She doesn’t remember me.”

  Cool, dry fingers pressed gently upon her neck, checking her pulse.

  “Her skull was cracked. We had to remove some bone fragments from her brain. There was brain damage; we just don’t know how severe yet.” The responding voice was quiet, clinical, and strangely compassionate.

  “Will she remember me ever?”

  The fingers left her neck. “There’s no way to know, Mr. Hendriksen. We’ll just have to take it one day at a time.”

  The man nodded and angled himself so that he looked directly into her eyes. Very clearly and distinctly, his softly spoken words penetrated her fading consciousness: “I am Mick Hendriksen and you are Sonia, my wife.” Her eyes fluttered shut and she drifted back off into the ease of black, soundless, painless oblivion.

  “Mr. Hendriksen, she’s on the mend. Why don’t you get some rest? Eat. Take a shower and change your clothes.”

  Mick looked up at the doctor, despair written on his face.

  Kris came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Mick, I’ll stay with her until you get back. You’ll do her no good if you’re too exhausted and sick to take care of her.”

  The rock star nodded in defeat and rose on shaky legs. Davis, Angelo, and Jack helped him walk to taxi and shielded him from the cameras and shouted questions of the paparazzi gathered at the hospital entrance.

  With a tiny spark of hope burning deep within his heart, Kris sat down beside Sonia and took her hand in his own to keep vigil while Mick took care of his own needs. He leaned over to place a butterfly kiss on her cheek.

  “Come back to us, Sonia,” he whispered, his voice thick with tears. “Mick needs you. He loves you and so do I.”

  She woke for brief periods of time over the next several days, each time staying away a little longer. On the fifth day, the doctor ordered her moved out of intensive care.

  Settled into her new bed, Sonia looked at the five men camped out in her room and asked, “Am I related to any of you?”

  Eyebrows rose and jaws dropped.

  “Shit. Oh, shit,” Angelo cursed. “Her family still doesn’t know.”

  “You mean you’re not my family?” she asked, puzzled. “Then why are you here? I can’t be married to all of you. Or are you all Mick’s brothers?”

  She glanced toward the tall, tattooed, muscular man in jeans, tee shirt, and heavy black boots who identified himself as her husband. He didn’t seem like the kind of person she’d marry, she thought, nose and forehead wrinkling as she pondered that one.

  “Baby,” the big Black man who was called Davis moved beside her and took her hand. The other one was still bandaged. “Mick is your husband and none of is a blood relation to him or to you. You have a family back in Ohio. We’ve been remiss in not calling them and will fix that now.”

  Angelo nodded even as Mick whipped out his cell phone and dialed. He rose and left the room for what was going to be a very uncomfortable conversation.

  “Then where are we and why am I with you?”

  “We’re in Portland.” He caught her puzzled look and clarified, “Oregon, not Maine.”

  “Why are we in Portland?”

  “We had a concert here.”

  “Am I a singer? I don’t think I’m a singer. And I’m pretty sure I don’t play an instrument.”

  Kris’ heart broke at her words, seeing that she’d lost so much of herself. But Davis answered, keeping his velvety baritone gentle and soft as he held her hand with a delicacy that any passerby would have found astounding in such a big, rough looking man.

  “No, you’re not a singer and you don’t play any instruments that we’re aware of. But you do play a mean hand of euchre and you’re a fabulous cook. That’s what you were doing when … when you were hurt—cooking for us, for the roadies, for everyone on the tour. You’re generous like that.”

  Unable to stand just hovering there in silence, Jack seated himself on the other side of her bed and ran a gentle knuckle down her cheek.

  “Honey, we’re a band. Our best songs were inspired by you and are dedicated to you. We weren’t sure what to make of you when Mick introduced you to us, but we’ve all come to love you. You’re our little sister, the one whom we’d protect with our last breath.”

  “So, I was on the tour as the band’s cook and also married to one of the band members?”

  “Got it in one, honey.”

  “And my name is Sonia, right?”

  Kris turned his face away and closed his eyes in heartfelt thanks that she at least remembered her first name.

  “Yes, your name is Sonia,” Jack confirmed, his voice ringing with reassuring conviction.

  “Do I … do I have children?”

  “No, babe, you don’t have children.” Kris answered that one. His lips twisted in a bitter smile. “In fact, you and Mick are newlyweds.”

  She repeated “newlyweds” silently, tasting the syllables on her tongue. A glance toward the door showed that Mick was still in the corridor, speaking in hushed tones to people who were supposed to be her family.

  “What do you know of my family?” she asked.

  “We’ve never met them,” Davis admitted. “I think there were loose plans to spend two or three days in Ohio while on tour to meet them.”

  Her mouth tasted the words “on tour.” She frowned. “Are you very famous, then?”

  “You can hear our songs on the radio now and then,” Jack answered modestly.

  At that point a nurse entered and shooed the men out of the room to protect the patient’s modesty while she took her vitals and checked out various other parts of her anatomy. When the nurse left, Sonia drifted back to sleep.

  Two days later a new group of people entered the room: an older woman who looked a lot like her, a middle aged man who was obviously her husband, and three young men. Two of them resembled the older man and one of them resembled the older woman. She looked at them and supposed they were her family.

  The woman’s eyes widened and she rushed to Sonia’s bedside, grabbed her hand, and wept bitterly. Sonia looked up at the man who stood a few feet away, uncertainty and grief etched on his face.

  “Er … hello,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “Hello, Sonia,” one of the young men replied. He approached her bed, bent over a little, and asked gently, “Do you remember us?”

  She searched his face intently and tried to force a memory, but only succeeded in giving herself a headache. With a sigh, she admitted that, no, she did not remember any of them. The admission set off a new level of loud wailing.

  With a pained look, the young man gave her what was supposed to be a reassuring smile and said, “I’m Alan, your youngest brother. The other two over there are Gavin and Mark. Gavin’s the oldest of us. He’s married and has two kids. Mark and I aren’t married. Our youngest sibling is Jordan and she’s still in high school.”

  She nodded carefully so as not to aggravate the headache.

  The older man stepped close, clasped his wife’s shoulders and drew her away. “Calm down, Serena. She’s uncomfortable e
nough around us.”

  “She doesn’t remember me!” the woman wailed.

  “She will,” he reassured her. “For now, let’s be grateful that Sonia wasn’t killed.”

  “Was I in a car accident?”

  “Er … no, you weren’t. You were in the bus with that awful band—”

  Sonia’s father cut off his wife’s vitriol. “No, Sonia. You were attacked. Then somehow the bus caught fire and you were trapped inside.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “We know, honey. And we’ll do what we can to help you. Your mother has kept your room ready for you, so you can move right back home. We’ll take care of you until you’ve recovered.”

  “What about Mick?”

  “What about him?”

  “We’re married. Shouldn’t I go home with him?”

  “Honey, he’s supposed to be on tour,” her father patiently explained. “You have no home with him yet.”

  Sonia looked bewildered, but said nothing. How could she and her husband have no home? But then, even if they did, he’d be busy doing whatever it was a musician did while traveling and could not attend to her needs.

  The quiet footstep of his heavy boots announced his arrival. She wasn’t sure how he managed to walk quietly in those boots. She looked at his concerned expression, the dark, shoulder length hair framing his face, the deep brown eyes taking in every detail. She let her gaze linger on the wide shoulders, the broad chest that tapered to a narrow waist, the ropey muscles in his arms, and the distinctively tattooed skin. He was big, she realized. He stood taller than her father and brothers. She focused on the high cheekbones, the strong, clean line of his jaw, the full, sensual lips, the hawk’s beak of a nose.

  And she realized that this man was beautiful.

  “Do we have a home?” she blurted awkwardly.

  Mick’s face took on a pained expression as he edged between her family members crowded around the hospital bed. He laid a hand lightly on her arm and said, “No, Sonia. We had a place in Las Vegas, but sold it. The band’s agent is scouting for a place in Monterrey.”

  Images of a cottage and sand, the memory of a salty wind and hauntingly beautiful music, and feelings of astonished joy bubbled up at the word Monterrey.

  “That’s where we met, isn’t it?” she whispered as she clung to those wispy memories.

  Hope surged within him. But he did not want to frighten his wife who didn’t really remember him, not yet, so he forced himself to smile gently and reply, “Yes, babe. That’s where we met. You were on vacation with your friend and had the beach cottage next to mine.”

  “My friend?”

  “Oh, dear, don’t you remember Penny?” Serena asked. “She was only your very best friend since you were both in kindergarten. You two girls did everything together.”

  Sonia blinked, feeling uncertain because she could not remember this important person. “Where is she now?”

  “Jail,” Mick replied, his voice low and hard.

  “Oh.”

  “Penny’s a nice girl; she’s just going through a rough patch,” Serena excused.

  Mick wanted to argue the whole appellation of “nice girl” attributed to Sonia’s former best friend, but squashed the urge. An argument with his in-laws would do no one any good. So, he asked instead, “What do you remember about the cottage?”

  Sonia sank into the empty void of her memory and tried to dredge up the vague recollections that had teased her only a short moment ago. Slowly, slowly, she recovered them and said, “I remember sunshine and sand. Music. Your music, right?”

  He nodded and whispered, “You’re doing great, baby. What else?”

  Tingling heat ignited low in her belly and spiraled outward. She gasped softly. “That’s where we had our honeymoon, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Sonia’s eyes glanced at the wall calendar and she began counting back weeks.

  “When was I on vacation?”

  “June,” her mother answered. “After graduation, you took a full month’s break. Penny’s parents and we rented the cottage for you girls as a graduation present.”

  “And it’s August now?”

  “August twelfth.”

  She turned her head to look back at Mick. “We haven’t known each other very long.”

  He heard the faint tone of accusation and it hurt him. But he had to keep in mind that she did not remember. “We met a week into your vacation. We spent the day together at the aquarium. You enchanted me. Still do. I knew I couldn’t let you go, so I asked you to marry me. We married in Vegas and returned to the cottage to finish out the month. The days since we got married have been the best of my life.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Not much.”

  “Don’t try to fool me,” she bit out. “Just because I can’t remember doesn’t mean I’ve turned stupid.”

  Mick took her hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed her palm, then set her hand back down.

  “No, babe, you’re not stupid. I never thought that. No one thinks that.”

  She closed her eyes and wearily asked, “When I can leave this place?”

  “She’ll come back home, of course,” Sonia’s mother asserted as the entire group walked quietly from the room to let Sonia sleep in peace. Mick did not mistake the steely undertone of her voice. He knew he had a fight on his hands and that he was likely on the losing side.

  Serena focused her blue eyes, so much like Sonia’s, on him and bared her teeth in a feral smile. “Seeing as how you will be busy on tour and have no permanent home, it’s best that Sonia come back home with her family where we can take care of her.”

  “I can—”

  “You can what? Cancel the entire tour? I doubt your record label would forgive the breach of contract. You could hire a home healthcare nurse? Why do that when it would be better for my daughter to be surrounded by familiar things and the people who love her?”

  “I love Sonia,” he asserted in a quiet tone.

  “Sonia’s a good girl, respectable. She always has been. You’re her little rebellion, her fling with the wild side,” Serena said. “She took it too far by getting married, but that can be annulled easily enough, especially since she isn’t pregnant.”

  Mick stood there, absorbing the vicious words.

  “I read about you,” Serena continued, her voice icy. “You’re a womanizer. More than one source cited your unsavory drug habits and wild behavior. You are not what we want for our daughter.”

  “The fact remains that Sonia and I are married, Mrs. Houlihan, which gives me greater rights than you over her.”

  “So, what was your intent in marrying my daughter so quickly? You can’t honestly tell me that you loved her the day you met her. Sonia was raised to be a moral person. Did you marry her just to have sex with her and plan to divorce her when you got tired of her? Or were you just going to go on your merry way and have affairs?”

  Mick could not help the flush of embarrassment that crept over his neck and face.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just flatten you now,” Sonia’s father growled.

  “I love Sonia, my wife,” Mick replied. He sighed. “I’ll admit that my motives weren’t particularly honorable when I married her, but that doesn’t matter now. We are married and I do love her.”

  The older man glared at him, secretly relieved that he’d not be obligated to fight the younger, bigger man. But there was still the matter of Sonia’s recuperative care. “My wife, who is Sonia’s mother, is correct in that you can’t properly care for our daughter when she’s released from the hospital. She’ll need to be surrounded by familiar people and familiar things to help her get her memory back. You can’t give her that. You can’t take care of her. A tour bus is no place for her to recuperate.”

  And that, Mick knew, he had no argument against.

  His voice heavy, he said, “I’ll allow her to go home with you, but I’ll be picking her up when the to
ur ends.”

  “Leaving with you months from now will be her decision, not yours,” her father stated.

  Thus, several days later, Sonia left with those strangers who claimed to be her family because she could not deny the poor logic of trying to recuperate on a tour bus. One didn’t need to be a genius to figure out that was a bad idea. The stranger who claimed to be her husband kissed her lips lightly, gently, before sending her on her way. She glanced at the other four men who accompanied him as they parted ways in the airport and found herself seeking the blond Viking’s icy blue gaze which wasn’t icy when he looked at her.

  Her feelings confused her. Why was she attracted to one man and married to another?

  She kept her doubts to herself.

  Serena, the woman who identified herself as her mother, fussed nonstop over her until her husband admonished her to “leave the girl be and give her a little breathing room.”

  Hours later she was more or less comfortably installed in a girlish bedroom with cabbage rose wallpaper, French provincial furniture, and a menagerie of stuffed animals. A short stack of bookshelves supported a load of fiction paperbacks, mainly romance novels. She collapsed on the soft mattress amid weirdly familiar scents and slept until the next morning.

  Three months passed and Sonia endured plastic surgery to reduce some of the most severe scarring from the fire. Winter descended upon Ohio with its miserable freeze and thaw cycle, which made driving her to physical therapy sessions somewhat haphazard due to icy roads and drifting snow. It was a good long while before she could call Serena Houlihan “Mom” without cringing. More time passed before she could easily call Tim Houlihan “Dad.” The three men identified as her brothers and the high school senior introduced as their youngest sister spent time with her, but kept a careful distance that she wished her mother would. She would wander the house and yard and, after a few weeks, the neighborhood. She listened and waited. Strangely familiar scents would tease memories from her cotton wool mind. Other memories would waft up like smoke at odd moments, such as when her mother prepared meatloaf for supper and Sonia remembered that she detested meatloaf.

  Mick called every day, although more often than not their conversation consisted of awkward silences rather than any meaningful exchange of words. Several times the other band members and the stunning brunette named Candace joined in via Skype on Candace’s computer. At those times, the conversation flowed, the quips made her laugh, and she found herself watching the tall, buff blond rather than the beautiful, dark-haired man with the tattoos who called her “wife.” The blond man seemed to watch her closely, more closely than did everyone but Mick.