Divine Encounters

Chapters 1-10

Cacao. Amaya Wright loved chocolate. Anytime, day or night, happy or sad, she could eat chocolate. The sweet confection was a soothing balm to her tummy and to her soul. Milk chocolate made her swoon, its creamy goodness a pleasure to her tongue. But dark chocolate made her sing; the playful way it changed from bitter to sweet in her mouth was addictive. The luscious brown food of the gods was indeed her favorite treat; however, Amaya's love of chocolate was not limited to candy. Bite your tongue. She also loved dark chocolate men... you could not be too dark for her liking.

Thus, at her first live encounter with Chalk Divine on a glorious Sunday morning in June, she was immediately entranced. His complexion was coal black, and his skin was smooth, like freshly laid asphalt. She could not have described his face, or his body for that matter, as her eyes were busy delighting themselves in absorbing the pure blackness of him. The only thing that stood out almost as much as his color was his height. Finally, her eyes moved for the first time since she'd started her stare affair with him. But they didn't go far: just down to his feet, then back up to his head. He's a tree, a California Redwood, perhaps. Amaya bit her bottom lip and half-smiled. If there were such thing as a black tree, she would go home and write a poem; her simile of Chalk and that tree would make even the crudest man blush. But if the tree was going to be in his image and likeness, it would have to be all black: the trunk, the leaves, the branches and the fruit.

The way he was standing allowed her to observe his perfect profile and his bold features only made her fantasy guy more appealing. My eyes highly approve of everything they can see, she mused, standing still as a statue while continuing to admire the fine specimen across the room. Then, without warning, he turned and met her gaze, totally disrupting her rumination. Amaya should have been embarrassed, and would have been, had she been able to look away. But for the life of her, she could not. As a matter of fact, her eyes wouldn't even blink. There was a magnetic field between them, and its grasp temporarily disabled her. Had anyone asked her what was wrong at that particular moment, Amaya would have said she was paralyzed.

Frozen in her own gaze, she could not move. So, they stood there staring at one another, until Mark touched his arm and said something to him. Chalk picked up his briefcase and they both walked down the middle aisle toward the back of the church, probably to make their exit. Released, Amaya decided to use the side door and hopefully avoid running into them. She was bold when it came to staring from afar but would likely faint if he said anything to her.

No, this is all wrong, she thought, head down, walking swiftly to her car. I'll go home now and pray. Her supplication would be that she never lay eyes on him again because he was trouble – for her.

He was probably married anyway, so he certainly was not meant – for her.

Chalk Divine was definitely the new black... for her.

Chapter 2

Cat. Chalk Divine hated early morning meetings, but Cade Solomon was a person he held in high regard, and even if he were to ask for a meeting at midnight on a Saturday, he would accommodate him. Chalk lived in midtown and worked in the medical center. Coming from where he lived to the north side for an 8:30 meeting on Monday morning was a suicide mission. To ease the pain, he'd headed out extra early and now had close to an hour to spare, so he pulled into a Starbucks and got himself a coffee. The Woodlands was an interesting place lush with trees and foliage, just as the name suggested. The upscale, master planned community was picturesque and a little slower than midtown, but from what he'd heard, people who lived there would not trade it for the world. Chalk did not really care about such things.

He sipped his java and booted up his tablet. A colleague had sent him an article on a new breakthrough, holistic approach to clearing clogged arteries and now would be the perfect time to peruse it. As he looked around the coffee shop, his eyes passed over the crowd of people waiting for their beverages and did a quick double take. Could it be? Chalk wondered, as his mind processed what he saw. That's her... Cat was standing off to the side waiting for her coffee. This is unbelievable...