Page 205 of Sing with Me

“I know. But I got the girl.” He chuckled. “My advice to you, Diehl—now that we’re both Christians—is to seek God’s best for you and Skye. If you’re meant to be, you’re meant to be, no matter how long it takes. I don’t want you to put your career above love, and certainly not above Christ.”

“I’ll pray about it.”

“Good answer, Son.”

“In that case, probably the best thing for me to do is stay in this building until Riley gets here,” Diehl said.

“That’s a switch.”

“Because of our conversation with Riley, I realized that the transition would be smoother if we leave things in place while you train Riley to run this office.”

Dad nodded. “Seems like a simple solution.”

“I let my emotions get in the way,” Diehl admitted. “I want to rush back to St. Simon’s ASAP.”

“Me too, for other reasons. Golf, for instance.”

They laughed, but Diehl could see the lines relaxed on Dad’s face. He knew then that he had done the right thing—though Dad would have supported him either way.

“What about Skye?” Dad asked.

“If Skye loves me, she will wait for me. She’s also her own boss and understands that we have to make hard business decisions sometimes.” Diehl prayed that he was right about Skye.

Would she wait for him?

Chapter Fifty-Four

“Did you make it to all your meetings?” Skye asked on the speakerphone. She was stir-frying some shrimp and vegetables as a pot of rice boiled away on another burner.

“Yep, all three of them,” Diehl said over FaceTime.

Skye could see his face on the small phone she had propped up against the refrigerator wall that was next to the quartz counter by the stove.

Sebastian’s kitchen was small, but he usually cooked at the restaurant, so there was no need for a fancy kitchen here. Tonight, Sebastian was filling in for a chef who had called in sick. Emmeline was at a harp recital downtown.

Skye would have gone, but she wanted to catch up on work. She decided to eat in. Next thing she knew, it was past eight o’clock before she started dinner.

“You’re eating dinner late,” Diehl said. He was in the same old T-shirt Skye first saw him in the Friday he arrived at Brinley’s beach house.

“Time ran away from me. I was going to cook an hour ago, but here I am. I could still be eating dinner when Seb and Em get home.”

“Maybe you’re away from home, and it feels like vacation.”

“A working vacation, at least. Yeah. Maybe.” Skye stirred the rice in the pot. “Has Detective Jeong called?”

“I was going to tell you that he came to the office this afternoon. He was heading back out to St. Simon’s.”

“What did he have to say?” Skye turned down the stove and put a cover over her shrimp dish.

She moved the phone to the island so she could sit on a barstool and take a break from standing. She propped up the phone in front of a small jar of candle.

“They arrested Zeta Bishop and charged her with a criminal conspiracy to commit kidnapping,” Diehl said. “She masterminded the whole thing, according to Romina.”

“Everyone confessed?”

“Not all. The investigation is ongoing,” Diehl said. “Elisa is done, though. They asked her everything they needed in two days of interviews. That way they don’t have to make her recall everything all over again.”

“Will they charge those people for crimes in in both cities?”

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