Page 215 of Sing with Me

After Jodie left, Diehl opened his email and read the entire article himself. There was one photo of Skye in a pair of sunglasses at the food festival. She was standing next to two other people. One was her brother, but who was the other man? He read the caption.

Watt Watanabe, owner of Watt’s for Dinner personal chef service, was eighty-eight years old and decided it was time to finally retire after his wife passed away following a long illness. An old friend of Skye’s uncle, Miller Langston, he had refused to sell his business to anyone but Skye. The actual sale price was undisclosed.

“I wonder if Skye got a deal.” Diehl started to get curious. He glanced at his watch. Five o’clock and not a moment too soon.

He was staring at the photograph of a casual Skye in a pretty dress doing the thumb’s up sign with Watanabe—who looked old enough to be her grandfather—when he spotted someone in the background, among the crowd.

Diehl enlarged the photo. It was grainy but he could spot that stance any time. There, in the front row of the crowd, eating a corn dog or something on a stick, was none other than Jared Urquhart.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Diehl was about to send a congratulatory text to Skye when Dad appeared at the door. “Ready to go home?”

Diehl nodded as he stared at the old message from Skye.

Celebrate with me.

She had wanted to share her good news with him, but he had been too busy. And when he had a bit of time, his jealousy of Jared got the better of him.

Jared seemed to have weaseled his way to Skye’s side. If Diehl didn’t act fast, Jared might worm his way into Skye’s heart. It would be worse than his appearing in the background of a photograph with Skye in the foreground.

Luigi had stolen Isobel from Diehl when he had no time for her.

He wasn’t about to let someone else steal his new love.

“Diehl?” Dad asked.

“Ready.” Diehl closed his iPad, and looked around for his satchel.

“Something the matter?” Dad stepped inside his office.

“Let’s go home.”

“Murray can wait. He’s listening to the five o’clock news anyway.” Dad sat down in one of the armchairs facing the couch. He used his cane to tap the couch, asking Diehl to sit there. “Talk to me, Son.”

Forty years old, and he couldn’t handle his own problems.

Perhaps being married to Isobel and having kids too early had robbed him of time to fall in love. Really fall in love.

Now he didn’t know what he wanted—

Yes, I know what I want. But…

“I can’t have her, Dad.” Diehl dragged himself to the couch. When he lay there, he remembered the day Skye had found him drunk out of his mind—before Elisa was abducted.

To be sure, after he was saved, he hadn’t drunk a single drop. Not even when Dad and Mom invited him to join them. Sure, he sat with them in Isobel’s “drinking room” but all Diehl had that evening was mineral water.

His old desire for alcohol had vanished. God had removed it from his system. He had no desire to touch another drink.

And yet.

“I don’t want to inflict the stains and sins of my past life on her.” Diehl kicked off his shoes. “She is so beautiful and pure, and I don’t know how to love her.”

“The woman you spent the night with a month ago?” Dad asked.

Diehl placed an arm on his forehead to block the ceiling lights. “We didn’t spend the night—not technically. I slept on the couch, and she was in the guest room. Her brother and sister-in-law were in another room. It was all clean. God was our witness.”

“Did you kiss when no one else was around?” Dad wiggled his eyebrows.

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