Chocolate Kisses: Sonoran Love, #1

By Patti Anne Neal, Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor and Neal C. Taylor, JD

Strong-willed Maggie is a gifted psychologist and counselor.  However, her dismal business skills leave her desperately trying to save her private practice.  Having lost in love, Maggie avoids romantic situations.  When enticing Hugh Bradford enters her life, Maggie runs scared.  Can she overcome her wariness with the handsome and wealthy Hugh Bradford enough to chance her heart?

CEO Hugh Bradford is married to his job.  No female has tempted him to take time away from his first love – his very successful business.  However, the elusive Maggie Conley has Hugh's head spinning, and his heart aching, until he is virtually unproductive and such a grouch that his family and employees are complaining.  Can Hugh's matchmaking family manipulate him into pursuing the elusive Maggie enough to win her love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Patti Anne Neal LLC Production
• Release date: Apr 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386876694

Book preview

Other Publications by

Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor

Professional Nonfiction

Making Miracles: 1st I Cured My In-Curable Blindness So Why the Hell Am I Still Fat

The Effects of Diagnosing/Labeling Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Students

Reaching the Jury: A Case for Multimodal Presentation (Co-authored with Neal C. Taylor, J.D.)

Numerous articles on sleep

Numerous articles on the science of learning

Fiction

Slip Away: 11 Escape Stories

My Dead Mama’s Windchimes (The Hollow Book 1)

Chocolate Kisses (Sonoran Love Book One) (Chocolate Kisses is a Romance Co-Authored with Neal C. Taylor, J.D and published under the name Patti Anne Neal)

Chocolate Kisses

Sonoran Love Book One

Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor

And

Neal C. Taylor, J.D.

Writing as

Patti Anne Neal

www.DocTaylorBooks.com

www.PattiAnneNeal.com

www.DrPattiTaylor.com

Educational Consultancy

CHOCOLATE KISSES

Copyright © 2019 by Patti Anne Neal

AKA:  Dr. Patti Novotny Taylor &

Neal C. Taylor, J.D.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

places, and incidents either are products of the

author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,

or locales is entirely coincidental. 

A Patti Anne Neal LLC Production

Cover and art direction by

Candice Diaz

DEDICATION

IN LOVING MEMORY OF our daughter, Jessica Maritte, who Beta read and proofed our manuscripts. Jessica, you said that you loved all of our books, but Chocolate Kisses was your all-time favorite. You said you never loved another book as much as you loved this one. So, this book is for you, Jessica!

Jessica, no one brought joy into our lives like you did. You were our sunshine girl who never met a stranger. You always told people that you were the luckiest kid in the whole world, and you were our one marshmallow kid.

1

Three Days from Now

HUGH FINALLY GAVE in to his restless compulsion to return to the retreat center. His uneasiness didn’t make sense, and he dreaded facing the torrential rain. However, he was so unsettled that he grabbed the truck keys and headed out.

Now, Hugh honked his horn again from the far side of the wash. He helplessly watched the car enter the flooded wash’s swirling, muddy waters. What the hell’s wrong with that fool?  Can’t he see that water’s dangerously high?

Hugh felt an odd mixture of spiraling concern and annoyance as he watched the car hang up on the mesquite tree’s exposed roots. How long would that old root resist the powerful sweep of the dirty, brown floodwaters?

Hugh eased his powerful, four-wheel-drive Ram onto the raised shoulder of the road and positioned the headlights to illuminate the small sedan that clung precariously to the old tree.

Hugh could see a woman inside the car. She didn’t appear to be moving. Was she dead?  Something about the woman’s silhouette was achingly familiar. And then, Hugh knew!

2

Three Days Earlier

MAGGIE TOSSED light-brown hair behind her ear and raised her blue eyes. Hi . . . Uh . . . she trailed off as her breath caught in her throat.

Time seemed suspended as Maggie looked into the bright eyes of the man standing in front of her. Tall and darkly handsome, he had the most beautiful amber eyes. They were the color of warm sherry. Not that they looked so warm. They looked . . . well . . . skeptical. Cynical perhaps.

Remembering to breathe, Maggie found a precarious smile, and said Hello.

The man’s nut-brown hair was a touch too long. Maggie was tempted to push the fallen lock off his brow. He stood with his feet braced and his hands parked on his hips. His luscious mouth quirked into a boyish grin. Hello. My name’s Hugh Bradford. I believe I’m already registered.

Fluttering around with the roster in her hand, Maggie had a hard time focusing on the registrant list. Finally, she found his name. Oh yes. Bradford. I have you here. Paid in full and your registration’s in order.

Indicating the basket of keys marked gentlemen, Maggie explained the process.

You still have free time before the workshop begins, Maggie said while admiring the white teeth peeking out from his crooked smile.

Hugh Bradford reached into the basket and pulled out a key with the number 7 on it. Looking in the basket, his eyebrows rose, and he retrieved another key with the same number. Does this mean I have a roommate?

Yes. Everyone has a roommate. There are two people per room. We have just enough rooms to accommodate everyone.

Oh, he responded with a twist of sensuous lips.

Maggie supposed he had expected a room to himself. She wondered if he was upset or disappointed. Oh well.

Turning back to Maggie, Hugh asked, Any messages for me?  Bradford?

Maggie felt a groupie-like smile bloom on her face. She looked down at her message list and chirped, Nope. No Bradfords.

Maggie fumbled her favorite purple-ink-gel pen until it flew away. Maggie and Hugh both grabbed for the pen as it danced across the table. Hugh’s smile grew when he handed the flyaway instrument to her and their hands brushed. Maggie rubbed the goose bumps on her forearms. She put on her best smile, though it wobbled at the edges. Hugh did not seem to notice as he visually scanned the room.

With a distracted nod, Hugh moved away. He searched the room for the enchantress Larry had raved about. What was her name?  Mabel?  Michelle?  Maggie?  That’s it!  Maggie!

An eager, middle-aged schoolteacher was next in line. The teacher, back for her second workshop, chattered excitedly. Maggie smiled, nodded, and heard nothing. When the teacher moved on, Maggie propped her elbows amid orientation supplies stacked on the rickety table and sighed.

As others arrived, Maggie regained her equilibrium. She welcomed entrants and confirmed their registration for the three-day Emotional Healing and Life workshop.

As she checked the attendees in, Maggie recognized a smattering of familiar faces—folk who had attended prior workshops. These participants were the easy ones. The majority of registrants were first-timers who would need to be handled like a mother handles a newborn baby—with extra care and love.

Maggie completed several registrations. When the process lulled again, she gnawed her bottom lip, looped hair behind her left ear, and slipped into a reverie about the handsome Hugh. Hugh Bradford, CEO, Bradford Enterprises, read the registration. The check had been written on a business account for Bradford Enterprises, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona.

Maggie remembered the electricity that had pulsed through her with the brush of Hugh’s hand. She remembered Hugh’s application. The workshop application asked for a brief description of pain or losses. Hugh Bradford’s registration form had the words perfect life penned in bold strokes. He must have completed the form himself.

Perfect life. Maggie had heard that before. There were always those who came to workshops saying they only wanted to observe. Their lives were so perfect that they had no need to be there for emotional issues. Yet they always found, as they listened to the painful stories of others, that they did have a well of emotional pain. Then, they were able to pull the pain out, work through it, and find a place of peaceful healing on the other side.

Maggie always wondered if there would be a workshop when someone was unable to find healing. This devastatingly good-looking man could be the one. Hugh Bradford—Bradford Enterprises. Perhaps his name should be Huge Hugh. He certainly had the stature for such a name.

Maggie twirled a shiny strand of hair around her finger as she thought about her old friends, Jonathan and Dusty. Maggie had grown up with the brothers, in Tucson. Jonathon and Dusty were some of Maggie’s closest friends. In fact, Dusty was a co-counselor for this workshop.

Maggie had once been engaged to the warm and compassionate Jonathan. He was the perfect man and would make the perfect husband, and father. Maggie had come close to marrying Jonathan. But there was just something missing.

Maggie believed that a spark of magic was an essential ingredient for marriage and Jonathon felt too brotherly.

After Jonathan, Maggie had endured many borderline-scary dates. She received several proposals from men that she suspected were well on their way to raging alcoholism. Then, she was engaged to the womanizing-trumpet-playing-Oren for close to a year.

Dusty and Susie had been married for a number of years. They had two kids and were one of the happiest families Maggie knew.

Dusty was much like his brother, Jonathan. However, while Jonathan chose to be an engineer, Dusty chose to be a counselor and he was a darned good one. Moreover, he was a wonderful husband and a loving father.

Dusty had worked hard for a master’s degree in counseling while waiting tables at night. Now he worked as a counselor for Child Protective Services. That was his day job—the job that paid the bills.

The workshops, for all three counselors, Maggie, Linda, and Dusty, were labors of love. If they were lucky, they would break even on the cost. Sometimes they even made enough to pay themselves a little. However, that wasn’t what counted. They felt that the true payments for counseling were the life-changing, emotional breakthroughs, which they were privileged to midwife for others.

Maggie was called early to her life as a counseling psychologist. Being a counselor seemed like the natural and inevitable course of events. Like the inevitability of the wild flower blooming when it received the spring rain and warm summer sun.

Growing up, Maggie had been an emotionally perceptive child. Her childhood wasn’t exceptional, but Maggie was the one to whom anyone could talk.

After high school, Maggie went to college and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology. It was there that Maggie realized what she really wanted to do. What she wanted, what she needed, was to be a counseling psychologist. That meant earning a doctorate. It also meant years and years of further education with a price tag to match.

Maggie’s dad couldn’t understand the value of professional counseling. Don’t people have friends they can talk to? he inquired with a frown.

Maggie’s mother’s objection was different. She argued that Maggie was unlikely to find a husband if she was too educated. Maggie’s mother’s pessimism was a deeply embedded thorn that festered every time her mother found an opportunity to dig at it.

Maggie’s mother insisted that Maggie’s stubborn independence would inevitably lead to spinster-hood. Everyone knew a woman needed a man to do for her.

Thinking about her mother had Maggie choosing another chocolate while she drummed the tabletop and wondered if her mother was right after all. Did stubbornness cause Maggie to extend her education by obtaining a master’s and a doctorate?

Maggie waitressed her way through her undergrad and master’s degrees. The doctoral study was another story, and loan debts piled up.

When Maggie thought about it, the amount she owed on her school loans and credit cards scared her. When the worry got overwhelming, she reflected on the old adage that education pays. Maggie did not care to get rich. Nevertheless, she did want to make a decent living and have the opportunity to help others.

Nine years and four months after embarking upon her path, Maggie Conley graduated with her Ph.D.—her Doctorate in Counseling Psychology. She completed the lengthy and difficult process of obtaining a license to practice as a psychologist. Then she opened her own private practice, confident that she could heal the emotional world, or at least part of southern Arizona.

Three years after graduation, Maggie had exhausted all of her financial resources, gone deeply into debt, and learned that healing the world sometimes required more than good intentions and an expensive education. It was clear that the financial end of Maggie’s private practice was near.

After the workshop, Maggie planned to go home and close down her office. She had secured a job teaching at Scottsdale Community College for the fall. Maggie liked teaching and looked forward to working at SCC. However, teaching was not her first love. Her first love was hands-on counseling. She would also have to leave her beloved Tucson, and her closest friends. The SCC compensation packet was modest but reliable.

Maggie acknowledged that teaching was a compromise. Life often required such demands. It was probably just one of life’s little lessons, she thought. Surely, there would be other chances to practice counseling psychology in the future. Now, Maggie savored the last workshop.

Maggie, Linda, and Dusty put workshops together several times a year. They formed a dynamic, healing trio.

What they really needed was a good business partner. They needed someone who knew marketing and could take care of the business end of the projects, someone who could handle the health insurance companies, and collect the money.

Maggie released a core-deep sigh. She rubbed the hand that still tingled from the quick contact with Hugh Bradford. Oh, Jonathan, if there’d been such a tingle with us, we’d have a family by now. Will I ever find that perfect combination?  That mixture of warm compassion, simple love, and respect, combined with the excitement of looking into warm, sherry eyes, and kissing firm, sculpted lips?  Warm sherry eyes and firm sculpted lips?  Oh God!

3

HUGH UNLOCKED the door and surveyed the small, cell-like room. Two twin-sized beds and one very small closet. Opening the only other door, Hugh found a bathroom with another door that obviously led into another guestroom.

Oh great!  It looked like he and his roommate would have to share the bathroom with two other people!  Oh well, it was only three days. Then he could return to the closely guarded privacy of his sprawling, Scottsdale mansion.

Hugh smiled as he thought about Maria's reaction. If she’d seen her darling Hugh's accommodations!  He imagined Maria’s long, grey braid swaying as she hummed and prepared heavenly meals in his humongous, chef-inspired kitchen.

Maria was more than a cook and housekeeper. Over the years, she had become a doting Godmother who could not seem to do enough for her handsome boss. Maria never missed an opportunity to tell Hugh that time was moving on and a good wife was all he needed. "Sure, the dinero—it is nice—but what good is money when the only one who sees the sadness in your eyes, and tries to comfort you, is an old woman?"

Maria insisted that her boy needed babies before she was too old to enjoy them. She said that as though she didn't have more energy than many people half her age.

Hugh decided to take a stroll around the retreat grounds. Just as he reached for the outside doorknob, the door opened. A medium-sized, middle-aged man smiled a greeting.

Hello, I'm Louis. I guess we'll be roommates for a few days.  Putting his bags down, Louis reached for Hugh's hand.

Hugh hesitated, adjusted his stance, and then grasped the extended hand.

Hugh. Glad to meet you. I'm just going out for a walk before this thing gets started.

∞∞∞

The scenery around Tucson was beautiful any time of the year. Hugh planned to soak up the sights and sounds of Mother Nature’s gifts. He soon learned that his intentions were doomed. His thoughts kept going back to the woman who greeted him at the registration table.

Hugh frowned as he walked through the brightness of the early morning desert. There was something about that Louis guy. Perhaps it was the too friendly look in his eyes. Or, maybe the soft, two-handed handshake that made Hugh a little uncomfortable.

On the other hand, Hugh had no objection to that little piece of softness that checked him in at the registration desk. She was not the tall and slender, classically beautiful type he typically went for. She was different, certainly. Hugh mused on her thick, shiny, soft-looking, brown hair. She had peaceful, deep-blue eyes in the softly-rounded face of an angel. Hugh couldn’t say why but somehow, she was interesting.

Hugh hoped the angel hadn't noticed his discomfort when his hand brushed hers. It had taken everything he had not to grab her up and taste that soft, smiling mouth. Never, in his thirty-six years, had he reacted so strongly to a woman. Even now, Hugh could close his eyes and smell the fresh green-apple scent that assailed him in the confused grab for the pen.

Perhaps he would have time to talk with her later. Hugh wondered what her name was. It must be something soft and beautiful.

Hugh inhaled the scent of blooming creosote deeply into his lungs. He looked forward to basking in the intensity of the clear, blue canopy that highlighted the desert landscape. He longed for the smell of purple sage.

Hugh never noticed the vermillion-hued rocky cliffs that nestled the giant saguaros reaching for the yellow orb climbing the clear blue sky. In his musings, he was unaware of the animals that rustled the ground-hugging brush. Although the seemingly lifeless expanse was rife with the call of the cactus wren, and the chatter of the desert ground squirrel, Hugh did not hear their music.

Shaking himself from the uncharacteristic reverie, Hugh headed back to the center. He hadn't even seen the beauty of the early-morning desert.

∞∞∞

Hugh stood in his customary feet-apart-hands-on-hips stance. He tossed the hair off his brow and looked around the assembly room where the workshop participants were gathered. A very spartan, monastic order must own this facility, he thought. As the participants and counselors seated themselves, Hugh decided he would maintain a low profile. He took a place on the far side of the room.

Three people sat in front of the group. Hugh assumed these were the workshop counselors. There was the cute one who checked him in. My God, what made her so compelling?  There