This pained me for two reasons. First off, it was always hard when Kristen left for the winter. She was my best friend, and even though the older we got, the less time we were able to spend together, she was still my rock, my confidante, and the only person who knew how stupid I could be at times. Maybe someday I’d tell Rafe about the unfortunate mix-up with the milk and coffee and breakfast cereal, but since I hadn’t yet, maybe I never would.

Second, the closing of Three Seasons meant cold, and since I was still on the houseboat, the thought of snow, sleet, and below-freezing temperatures was not a welcome one.

After Rafe had walked me back to the marina and given me a hug and a chaste kiss (“Sorry, but I have to be at the school early tomorrow, and I’d like to give that handrail another coat of polyurethane tonight”), I changed my bed’s sheets from percale to cozy flannel and slid in with a book in my hand and an Eddie tucked into the crook of my elbow.

I woke in the morning with dream fragments wisping in and out of my thoughts.

“Everything was so weird,” I said to Eddie as I toweled my hair as dry as I could get it. “But I already can’t remember if they were a lot of different dreams or all one long bizzaro one.”

There had been bicycles. Lots of bicycles. Big ones and small ones. Fat-tire bikes. Sleek racing bikes. Mountain bikes. There’d even been a speedy tricycle ridden by a miniature version of Rafe, although his face had looked his current age. Ariella had been in a dream sequence, too, shouting at Bob Bernier for taking everything she’d ever wanted, which made absolutely no sense.

“But that’s dreams for you, right?” I asked, shrugging. Eddie, who was still on the bed, didn’t lift his head or even open his eyes.

How he knew it wasn’t a bookmobile day I had no idea. When I’d mentioned Eddie’s tendency to sit on the cat carrier as I ate my breakfast on days he went with me, Julia had given a stage smile and said something about cats and bonds and love that knew no bounds.

I’d been pretty sure she was misquoting somebody, but not sure enough to call her on it. Julia, when she felt the occasion warranted, could make the most mundane sentence sound like a pronouncement from the heavens. I had to be able to cite the source document to get her to recant, and if I could do that one out of five times, I considered myself lucky.