Mom looked out the window. "Looks like clear skies this evening."
"That's not the point. Why are you pushing Eden to get all these people involved in her little venture?"
Mom propped her hands on her hips. "Would it be the worst thing in the world if it succeeded?" When he stared at her in confusion, she went on. "If this website is successful, then maybe she won't feel like she needs to return to the city to find a job."
"Aha! I knew it!" Rudy pointed at his mom. "You're trying to push the two of us together."
"Well of course I am. Eden is a sweet girl and pretty too."
Rudy blinked a few times. He'd expected his mom to deny playing matchmaker, but she hadn't. "Yes, she is," there was no denying Eden was pretty, "but...what if she's not interested in sticking around here?"
She'd told him herself last week that Providence didn't have the kind of job she wanted.
"Well, of course she won't be interested in sticking around if we don't give her a reason to stay."
Rudy could think of lots of reasons to make her stay, and most of them had to do with her being wrapped in his arms.
He moistened his suddenly dry mouth. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, we need to show her all the charming parts of our little town and make her fall in love with Providence." She patted his arm and gave him a placating smile. "Then you can work on making her fall in love with you." She walked out of the kitchen leaving him with his mouth hanging open.
Eden walked out of her room to find him still gaping.
"Are you ready?" She shot him a smile that made his heart do that hard thumping thing.
He snapped his mouth shut and nodded.
She stopped as soon as they stepped out onto the porch and looked at the sky. "Is it going to rain on us again?"
Rudy examined the cloudless sky. "Doubtful."
When they hit the end of the driveway, she paused again. "You really don't have to take me to meet Hazel. If you want, we can just go see if Chase is out playing ball."
"Mom will want to know what you think of Hazel's garden, so we'd better go. Besides, I stopped and threw the football with Chase this afternoon on my way home from work."
"Football? I thought he played basketball?"
"This is a small town. Every serious athlete plays at least two sports in high school."
Her gaze raked over him from head to toe. "You have a home gym, so I assume you're a serious athlete. Which sports did you play?"
"Guess."
"Hmm..." She looked at him again in a way that made him flush. "You made a lot of baskets the other night, so I'm going to say basketball and...baseball."
"Close. I played basketball, although I was never as good as Chase. I also played football as a running back. And I ran track."
"Three? You must have been a serious athlete."
"Not really. In small towns like this, pretty much everyone who tries out makes the team." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "My parents insisted I participate in sports to keep me busy and out of trouble."
"Are you saying you were a hellion when you were a teenager?"
"Not really, I was a major geek, who was bored with school and became fascinated with hacking for a while."
"Hacking?" She looked at him wide-eyed. "Did you hack into something you shouldn't have?"
"The school computers." He grinned. "But don't worry, I didn't do anything bad. I knew there'd be serious consequences from my parents if I did. So I informed the principal of the weakness and let it go."
