He rotated. "I can't find it."
Eden untied the shirt she wore around her waist and twisted it to look like a rope. "Here, we need to stop the bleeding. This is going to need stitches."
"Head wounds tend to bleed a lot but they're rarely as bad as they look."
"I hope you're right, but you're going to the hospital regardless."
He leaned away as she reached toward him with her shirt. "You'll ruin your shirt."
"I don't care. We need to keep pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Now hold still."
Rudy clenched his teeth together while she wrapped her shirt around his head. He sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out in a hiss when she tied the knot over the wound.
"Sorry." Her voice was apologetic. "Now can you explain to me how to drive this thing back to the dock?"
"I got it." Rudy shifted to the back of the boat and grabbed the pull cord to start the engine.
They'd barely made it halfway across the lake before he regretted his decision to drive. It took forever to reach the dock, and the ache in his head pounded like a giant bass drum the whole time.
Eden was much more eager to help unload the boat than she had been to load it, and thanks to some good Samaritan fishermen, Rudy expended very little energy getting the boat loaded back on the trailer. He was more than a little embarrassed by his white turban, but he was in too much pain to truly care.
And he was utterly exhausted. When his vision blurred for the second time after getting behind the wheel, he brought the truck to a stop and turned to Eden. "I need you to drive."
"But I've never driven a truck before, let alone one pulling a boa—"
He must have looked as bad as he felt, because after taking one look at him, she unbuckled her seat belt and opened her door. Thank goodness, because he didn't have the energy to argue with her. Not did he want to admit how light-headed and shaky he felt.
Rudy did his best not to wince and hiss every time she hit a bump, but the thirty-minute drive back to Providence felt like an eternity.
Eden repeatedly mumbled under her breath. "I knew we shouldn't have kissed." And "That was stupid. I should have known better."
For once, Rudy didn't argue with her. Their kiss clearly hadn't caused his accident, but it happened so quickly afterward, that he feared Eden might be right.
God really is punishing us.
It wasn't until she said, "Of course, God is more powerful than Alice," that he finally spoke up.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing." She shook her head as she kept a tight grip on the steering wheel.
"Tell me what you meant about God being more powerful than my mom."
She huffed out a sigh. "Ever since I came to Providence, your mom has been pushing us together, but it seems like God doesn't want us to be together. Hence the reason all of these bad things keep happening." Her cheeks took on a rosy tint. "I've kind of been keeping a tally in my head of Alice vs. God."
Rudy would have laughed out loud if he didn't think it would make his head hurt worse. "Who's winning?"
Eden barely spared him a glance. "God, of course."
Yeah, and he used my mom's ridiculous hat to chalk up this point.
CHAPTER21
Eden sent Kennedy another intense stare from across the kitchen.
This time, Kennedy met and held her gaze. She lifted a questioning brow and tilted her head toward the hall.
Eden nodded and made her way through the crowded dining and family rooms to her bedroom.
