Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  “Does it hurt still?”

  She shook her head.

  He scowled, but it didn’t detract from his good looks.

  “I’m just glad your brothers and my mother were here.” The sincerity in his tone softened his eyes and face. “You have to be more careful. I know first-hand how dire accidents on construction sites can be.”

  “Have you had an accident before?” Amal stared at him, forgetting that she should not be seeing him in her private space. Suddenly she was gripped by a new worry. For him.

  “Not me, personally. Employees. Contractors. Coworkers. When it’s bad, it becomes devastating pretty quickly.”

  Amal should’ve left it there, but she heard herself wondering aloud, “But you’re alone in America. Who watches out for you?”

  Without missing a beat, he said, “No one.”

  “And you’re not lonely, Mansur?” Her heart felt pain at the thought of his having no one.

  “It’s Manny. You used to call me Manny,” he replied, after what felt like the longest silence. “Now I should probably head to my room.”

  He smiled then, and she was surprised to see it. Mansur didn’t seem like a man who smiled a lot.

  Amal basked in that smile, with a niggling feeling reassuring her that his happiness was due to her. Aware of how crazy the thought was, she shrugged his jacket off and held it out for him to take, careful that their hands didn’t touch when he took it back.

  “Lead the way,” he said, trailing her out of her room.

  Luckily, she didn’t have to spend any more time with him. She saw Manny to the guest room and left him to freshen up and change. Meanwhile, it was Amal’s turn to help the kitchen maid. Since temporarily moving in, she had become used to relieving Mama Halima of that duty. And today, especially, she anticipated mother and son wanting time alone.

  “What’s he like?” the kitchen maid, Safia, wondered aloud. “Nima said he is a gentleman. He didn’t yell when she almost washed his shoes.”

  Safia snickered then, her hand poised over the pot of simmering ground beef as she expertly poured chopped onions in. “I think she’s already in love with him. Don’t leave Nima alone with him when she’s cleaning the rooms.”

  The housemaid peeked in, hearing her name. “It’s not like I’m going to be in the room while he’s there.” She gave them a scandalized look.

  “Amal was alone with him.”

  Safia’s arch remark suggested she’d been spying again. She was the youngest and newest member of the household staff. She still had a lot to learn. But Mama Halima had cautioned Safia about snooping before.

  Amal was about to remind her when Nima breezed into the small kitchen, setting down the large metal tub of laundry she’d been planning to soap and rinse by hand.

  “What were you doing with him, Amal?” Nima asked.

  Safia grinned. “Flirting with him, of course.”

  The girls gossiped as if Amal wasn’t there, spinning stories about what had happened between her and Manny. And Amal didn’t say anything to correct them. She ducked her head, her eyes blurring from the onions she hastily peeled and diced into a bowl.

  She didn’t glance up until Nima asked, “You’ve known each other for a while, haven’t you, Amal?”

  Mama Halima must have told her. Nima hadn’t been in her employ for that long.

  The housemaid sighed and eyed her with such longing Amal’s chest panged for her. “That’s why I’m sure you two will be married.”

  “Nima...” Amal scolded, but too lightly to convince the girls to cease their gossip.

  If they didn’t stop, someone would hear them.

  As if the girls had conjured him, Amal stiffened at Manny’s deep-timbred voice from behind them.

  “Ladies,” he greeted them, breaking up the maids’ giggling. “It smells delicious in here.”

  Amal had trouble straightening her face after Safia’s and Nima’s teasing. Her cheeks warmed as she turned and studied Manny.

  He’d traded his suit for a collared T-shirt and cargo shorts. The crisply pressed shirt and shorts accentuated his toned arms and legs, and his corded, lean muscles flexed as he moved into the dim kitchen. Even in the weak sunlight, Amal could make out his attractive features.

  A smile softened the angular planes of his long face, and at Safia and Nima’s giggled greetings he flashed another smile, his straight white teeth popping against his rich umber skin and the short black curls of a beard growing in. It was scruffily sexy—and not what she should be thinking about at all.

  “Did you need anything?” Amal prayed he’d say yes. She needed a break from the girls. But Manny shook his head.

  “Just looking for my mother. I thought she might be in here. She was always fond of the kitchen.”

  Amal knew that much even with her amnesia. Mama Halima would be in the kitchen all day if Amal didn’t insist on relieving her. “She should be in her bedroom, if she isn’t in the living room. I could check—”

  Amal made to stand, but Manny gestured for her to sit.

  “I’ll find her myself.”

  He left as quietly as he’d entered.

  Nima and Safia traded knowing looks. The saucier of the two maids, Safia, winked at Amal. “So, when is the wedding?”

  Somehow Amal managed to get through dicing the onions for the sambusa wraps. Then, discerning the hour, she poured a cup of spiced tea, prepared a plate of sour flatbread—anjero—and ladled tomato soup into a bowl.

  She ignored the maids’ teasing about her organizing Manny’s late breakfast. It was only right she fed him; Mama Halima would have expected Amal to see to the comfort of any guest.

  It was one of the things she loved about the older woman, aside from her abundant patience, kindness, and generosity. Mama Halima didn’t treat her like an invalid. Amal’s amnesia was a concern to Manny’s mother, but she didn’t handle her like she was fragile, expensive china. Quite the opposite. She believed Amal should be helping Safia and Nima with the household duties. And it was a great relief that she was allowed to be...normal.

  Which was why the maids wouldn’t stop her preparing and traying Manny’s breakfast. On reaching his room, Amal noted the heavy oak door was ajar. She was about to set the tray down and knock when she stilled. Sharp voices spilled out, the words clearer now she was listening for them.

  “Think about what you’re saying!” Mama Halima’s displeasure pulsed in each word. “You’re going to abandon us now, after you’ve traveled so far?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m no doctor. I can’t help her.”

  Amal flinched at this brusque statement, her hands tightening painfully on the tray.

  “I’m of no use to you and Amal. Better I leave. I have business in Addis Ababa anyways.”

  Manny sounded exasperated and at the end of his rope. Amal knew it was because of her. They clearly hadn’t anticipated her hearing, or else they’d have shut the door.

  “Mansur, please,” Mama Halima begged.

  Amal hated it that Manny’s mother had to do it on her behalf.

  “Please, don’t do this. Don’t leave us.”

  “If it’s money you need I can wire it to you as usual. But I won’t stay here!” Manny stressed.

  After that exclamation, the silence inside was deafening. It spilled out into the foyer, washing over Amal. She was nearly knocked down by the force of the burden she’d become on people who were her family, of sorts.

  Family she’d forgotten. Family she was hurting unconsciously.

  Unable to stand around and contemplate why she should feel so humiliated by her injury and uncertain recovery, Amal acted quickly. The watery heat burning her eyes hurried her movements. She wouldn’t cry—not openly, for anyone to happen on her tears.

  Setting Manny’s breakfast tray to one side of the door
, where he’d be able to find it and not step on it, Amal hurried away.

  “Amal?”

  She froze at Manny’s imploring tone. She’d lingered too long and he stepped out, catching her fleeing.

  “Amal,” he said again.

  When he called to her Amal rounded on him. She knew he could see her tears. His lips stretched into a grave line and his dark eyes were steely. They held zero comfort for her.

  It was all she needed to hear and see—all she needed to know. Mansur was leaving. He wanted nothing to do with her. She’d overwhelmed him, and he was washing his hands of her memory problem, like most everyone had. It wouldn’t be too long before Mama Halima gave up hope, too.

  “I have to go,” Amal said, her voice sounding choked by the tears she’d tried so carefully to hold at bay.

  This time he didn’t stop her leaving.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NOTHING SHORT OF Manny finding Amal and begging her forgiveness would satisfy his mother, and she left him in a flurry of long black skirts and robes. She refused to speak to him until he apologized to her precious Amal.

  One of her comments in particular circled his mind like vulture on carrion.

  “Do you not care for Amal?”

  Manny had flinched when his mother had hurled the question at him, her accusatory tone laced with bitter disappointment. There had been one other time when she had looked at him like that—after he’d missed his father’s funeral, nearly a year ago.

  Manny hadn’t been too warm on his father, and he hadn’t cared to lay a stranger to rest. In hindsight, he regretted showing up at all. Maybe if he hadn’t he wouldn’t feel the relentless remorse of having failed his mother again. Only now his failure concerned Amal and not his father.

  In the end, he hadn’t been able to answer her. So his mother had departed his guest room with her dramatic ultimatum: either he fixed what he’d broken with Amal, or he could leave Hargeisa and never bother contacting her again.

  She was willing to sever her relationship with him for Amal. As if he wasn’t her biological child. Her only child.

  Manny gnashed his teeth, frustrated to have been put on the spot like that. Halfway through dragging his suitcase to the bedroom door, prepared to catch his mother out on her bluff, he grasped the brass doorknob and froze.

  Despite his resolve to leave after his mother’s stinging dressing-down, he couldn’t do it.

  Manny smoothed a hand over his weary face. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to the cool, solid oak door and counted his inhalations and exhalations. What he needed, moving forward, was a clear head.

  Several thoughtful breaths later, he opened his eyes and confronted what had been staring at him all along. In that moment he relinquished some of the barriers around his hardened heart to the sharp pull of culpability. He had played a role in pushing Amal away. The least he could do was leave when they were on a neutral footing. Though he struggled to admit it, he didn’t want Amal to hate him.

  Grunting, he turned from the door and dragged his suitcase back over the worn carpet, setting it by the guest bed. He hadn’t touched the breakfast Amal had prepared for him, though he’d carried it inside. The tray rested, forgotten, atop the crisp, freshly scented bedspread. It was only one more reminder of the daunting task before him.

  Did he not care for Amal?

  He cared for her plenty—obviously. Or else he wouldn’t be leaving this room hungry and annoyed, with guilt gnawing at his insides, doing exactly what his mother would have him do.

  Satisfied the foyer was empty, and that no one would witness his short walk of shame to Amal’s bedroom, Manny resisted barging in and dredged up enough patience to rap on her door. He gave her three biting warnings with his knuckles before he turned the doorknob, pushing the door open cautiously.

  There was no need for caution. Manny faced her empty bedroom.

  Stepping inside and closing the door, he looked about, as if preparing for Amal to burst out from under the bed or pop out of the stately wardrobe that had once belonged to him. It was different seeing her belongings in the space he’d called his own through much of his childhood. Worse, they looked so natural there. Like they always were meant to claim this room.

  He hardened his jaw and scowled at the memories in the room, looking at Amal’s new touches.

  The scarred pale yellow walls and the old wrought-iron single bed had once been his, and now they held Amal’s books and her headscarves. Her journal was now tucked away somewhere he couldn’t see, so he couldn’t be enticed to riffle through its secreted pages. Had she ever mentioned him in there? What were her thoughts of him now, with her amnesia?

  Manny stilled his hand, stopping shy of opening the single drawer of his old nightstand. It took considerable strength to pull back, calm his itching fingers. Even when she wasn’t present she tempted him.

  Recognizing lingering snatches of the fruity notes of Amal’s perfume over the sharper, spicier frankincense trailing in from outside, Manny caught himself soaking in her aroma. It took great effort to stir from the side of the bed, stalk from the room and from the main house to the kitchen, adjacent the side entrance. There he hoped he’d find answers for Amal’s disappearance.

  The temperature outdoors was beginning to warm as morning crept over the blue, cloudless sky. He stepped in from the sunlight, his eyes adjusting to the change in lighting within the dim kitchen, and startled the housemaid who’d been carrying the mop and bucket earlier. She gawked up at him from her stool. It appeared she hadn’t gotten used to his presence yet.

  “Is Amal around?” he asked, moving to a door near where the shocked housemaid sat before the charcoal stove.

  The roomy pantry was empty. Disappointed, he turned and discovered the other maid was joining them in the kitchen. She was the one who had originally sat in front of the stove with Amal.

  Manny repeated his question to her.

  “She left for work,” the kitchen maid said in Somali, leading Manny outside. She obviously trusted that he understood her, not slowing her rapid speech. “You might be able to catch her. Ask Abdi for a ride.” She pointed out the small guardhouse in the corner of the gated property.

  Manny had to round the dirt-caked truck that had brought him there to find the driver, his much older relative. Once he had the other man’s attention, Manny asked, “Can you drive me to Amal’s workplace?”

  “I can,” the older man replied, a carefree smile at the ready. He pushed himself off his worn mattress, tucked his phone away and made for the driver’s end of the pickup.

  As Manny climbed into the truck he acknowledged the lengths he was going to for Amal. But the sooner he found her, the quicker he could be done with his apology, be back on amiable terms with his mother, and the faster he’d be able to leave Hargeisa.

  Reaching for the seatbelt, he paused, remembering that it was broken. Gripping the roof handle, Manny girded himself for yet another teeth-rattling, bumpy ride like the one he’d endured from the airport.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought to grab an antacid from his suitcase. Not that he truly believed an antacid would reverse the heartburn creeping up on him. Intuition warned that it had to do with his impending meeting with Amal. And until that was done he’d have no relief.

  * * *

  Amal looked out her office window at her firm, AK Designs Architecture.

  It still floored her that she had a firm, even though she now remembered having purchased this fourth-floor office for her business. At one point, a few weeks ago, she hadn’t even been able to recall that she owned a business.

  Progress in her amnesia.

  It gave her hope that she’d eventually regain what she had lost, and all would be as right as the heavy rains that would come as soon as spring changed into summer.

  She looked away from the bustling world down below—the traffic, the peo
ple, the wandering goats, all under the morning sun’s golden blanket. She moved from the window to her desk, stroking her fingers over the smooth cherry oak surface.

  This was all hers.

  Amal sat in her office chair, picking up where she’d left off in trying to make sense of the technical drawings on her laptop. Only now it wasn’t because she was worried that she’d forgotten her job skills, but rather that she couldn’t tap into the right emotions for a project that should have been near and dear to her.

  A hospital in Hargeisa. One that actually had up-to-date medical technology and the right crop of professionals with the training to handle the equipment.

  As Amal now understood, it had been on the worksite of the hospital that she’d had the accident that had led to her amnesia. She had no recollection of having ever set foot on the construction site. But those newer adult memories seemed lost to her at the moment.

  “Or forever,” she said, with a weighty sigh whooshing out of her.

  She leaned back in her office chair, tipping her head up to the ceiling, her mind straying to Mansur, of all people.

  She snapped her head down, annoyed at herself. She was in the middle of giving her head a good shake when a knock stirred her into grasping the perfectly timed deflection.

  “Come in,” she called, standing and waiting for her visitor.

  She sucked in a sharp breath when Mansur opened her door, his height and muscled frame filling the doorway. Somewhere behind him Amal could hear the impatient snap of her office manager and friend, Iman.

  “Excuse me, sir! You can’t go in there.”

  Iman’s annoyance thickened her accented Somali. She was practically growling when Mansur stepped into the room, and Amal could see her glowering on the threshold of her office. The women exchanged a look and Iman rolled her eyes, crossing her arms, waiting for Amal’s signal to call some of their junior technologists—all young men who would be happy to drag Manny out of the building for them.

  As amusing as that might be—especially after her last interaction with Mansur—Amal gave Iman a little shake of her head. She had this covered. Seeing that she wasn’t needed, Iman offered one last frown and then swiveled on her tall heels, disappearing from the open door.