Page 195 of Sing with Me

“Let’s just make a dash for it. See the green awning over there?” Skye pointed. “That’s our entrance.”

“How about I drop you off?”

“We’re already parked. If you leave, someone else will take this spot.”

“Well, all right.”

“We can always dry up. Ready?” Skye put her hand on the door handle.

“Let’s go.” Diehl jumped out of the car and locked the door.

The rain poured all around them like waterfall as they held hands and ran toward the entrance.

“I see why you’re wearing hiking boots,” Diehl said. “My loafers are useless in this rain.”

Soaked through, they reached the awning. Skye laughed. “It feels like we fell into a pool.”

“It does.” Diehl reached for Skye’s face and pushed away a strand of hair stuck to her cheek. His eyes were on her lips. “Do we have time?”

“We make time.” Skye lifted her lips, inviting.

Diehl accepted the invitation.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Diehl watched Skye bury her face in a throw pillow as Sebastian went on and on about their teenage years living with their aunt and uncle on St. Simon’s Island. Emmeline was laughing her head off and her face had turned red.

“Stop it, Seb!” Skye’s voice came from behind the pillow. She was sitting on the rug on the floor in front of a couch on which Emmeline was rolling in laughter.

Across from the rug, Diehl stretched out in a recliner, wearing Sebastian’s Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt, gym shorts, and socks. His clothes were in the dryer somewhere down the hall.

Outside, the rain continued to pour, peppered regularly by thunder and lightning. It wasn’t going to let up, but Diehl wasn’t in a hurry. He could drive slowly in the rain home and he’d still get there by midnight.

He smiled as he recalled how they had kissed briefly outside. It was spontaneous, but he felt he could open up to Skye more than anyone else in the world.

In fact, he didn’t want anyone else.

His conversations with his Sunday School teacher at Seaside Chapel helped him to see his past and present in perspective. Matt told him that there were things he hadn’t understood in his twenties that he would begin to see now that he was forty.

Diehl had carried some emotional baggage in his life that God was lifting off his shoulders day by day. He had to let his brother go. And let Isobel go.

Then he would be free to love Skye.

“And then when we were in eleventh grade, Skye fell in love,” Sebastian said.

“Nooo!” Skye rolled over on the rug, her face still covered by the pillow.

“You can’t hide forever, Sis!”

“How would you like it if I told your stories?”

“They’re too boring.” Sebastian wiggled his eyebrows. “Yours, on the other hand…”

The dryer buzzer went off.

“Excuse me.” Diehl got up from the recliner and padded to the hallway. If his clothes were dry, he’d be out of here in five minutes.

“Are you leaving now?” Skye asked. Her hair spread out on the rug. Her floral pastel pajamas made her look dreamy lying sideways.

---