Eddie purred but didn’t lift his head to see, or even guess at the time frame for the next cloud movement. However, he did purr, which made me snuggle down under the comforter a little deeper, which kept me nice and toasty warm, something that wouldn’t have happened if I’d actually climbed out of bed, because that bright and breezy wind was from the north and it had brought remarkably chilly air along with it.

“Chilly for mid-September,” I reminded Eddie, who was paying zero attention to me. “Not cold at all for November, let alone December through April.”

The knowledge of the upcoming plunging temperatures made me slide a little deeper into the covers. Where would I be in November? By that time the houseboat would be out of the water and in storage. Would I be staying temporarily with Aunt Frances and Otto? Cousin Celeste, the new owner of my aunt’s boardinghouse, hadn’t offered me a winter home as Aunt Frances had done for years, but then Celeste was new to town and didn’t know about my possible housing needs due to Rafe’s tendency to drop his own renovation tasks to give friends a lending hand.

“And he has a lot of friends,” I said, sighing. That was a good thing, of course, but the whole moving-in date kept getting pushed further and further back in the calendar because of it.

“Mrr.” Eddie put one paw over his eyes. “Mrr,” he said again, purring.

“You’re right.” I patted him from under the blanket, which didn’t work out very well, but if I’d put my hand outside the covers, I’d realize how cold it was, and I wasn’t ready to confront environmental reality. “Of course you’re right. Not sure what you’re right about, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Mrr!”

Eddie sat up, gave me a Look, and in one smooth motion, jumped off the bed and onto the floor.

If, as Julia seemed to think, Eddie and I could communicate in a manner far exceeding the typical Eddie tendency to ignore the “No!” command and the typical Minnie tendency to think everything Eddie said meant he wanted a cat treat, that last “Mrr” would have meant something.

But it didn’t. And since my cat was clearly refusing to accompany me in my desire to stay in bed until the outside temperature increased by twenty degrees, I took a deep breath, flung back the covers, and got up to face the morning.

And it wasn’t one I was looking forward to. At all.

*   *   *

An hour and a half later, I’d showered, dressed, met Rafe for breakfast at the Round Table, confirmed the location of my morning destination via a couple of Google searches, and driven to the part of the county where Brown Bernier and his wife, Lindy, had lived for years and years.