And with that comforting thought, he gave me one last nod and headed back into the woods.
• • •
The next morning I woke up, put one foot outside the covers, then pulled it back with a yelp. “Hokey Pete! It’s cold out there!”
I carefully reached out for my cell phone, keeping my hand under the sheet, blankets, and comforter until the last possible moment. Even then, my skin went all prickly with the temperature change. I ducked all the way back under the covers, turned on the phone, and opened the weather app, which showed a temperature of twenty-nine degrees.
That couldn’t be right. The weather people had predicted a low in the mid-forties.
I poked at the phone and checked the current temperatures in Petoskey, Charlevoix, Mackinaw City, and Bellaire. All were hovering just below freezing.
“How could they be so wrong?” I asked out loud.
“Mrr,” said Eddie’s muffled voice.
“At least you have a fur coat,” I said, then made a few more taps that resulted in my aunt’s voice saying, “Let me guess. You want to move to the boardinghouse today.”
“Yes, please,” I said meekly. “Very much, please.”
She laughed. “Come on up, dear heart. You know you’re welcome any time.”
Immediately after the bookmobile day ended, the Eddie delivery took place. He studied his surroundings, emitted a very loud “Mrr!” and promptly jumped onto the back of the couch, where he’d spent a large portion of the previous winter. I drove to the marina and started heaving things into boxes.
It wasn’t the most organized of moves, but the unexpected cold snap was motivating and Aunt Frances, Otto, and I hauled the last item out of my car and up the stairs just past ten o’clock that night.
Aunt Frances surveyed the array of boxes, totes, and grocery bags strewn across my bed, the floor of my bedroom, and the hallway. “Do you know where anything is?” she asked.
“Not a single thing,” I said cheerfully. “Except for this.” I hefted the small duffle bag that I used for overnight visits.
Otto looked around. “I’m surprised you could fit this much stuff into that little boat.”
“Cabinets and drawers can hold more than you think. It’s all in the packing.”
“But why do you move everything back here in the winter? Couldn’t you leave most of this down there?” He grinned. “Certainly the kitchen equipment we hauled up won’t get used.”
I laughed. “Are you kidding? I hardly use any of this stuff on the boat. To answer your question, though, the first winter I did leave a number of things in place. Then a squirrel got in.”
“Ah.” Otto nodded. “Thus the moving.”
“Thus.” I pointed at the boxes. “Aunt Frances, I promise I’ll have everything organized and either put away in my room or up in the attic by Sunday afternoon.”
“Take your time,” she said. “That is, as long as you have everything out of the hallway before you go to work on Monday.”
I held up my hand, Girl Scout promise style, and vowed to do so. I’d have to go down to the boat one more time to do what my brother called a Paranoid Check, making absolutely sure one final time I hadn’t left anything behind, but I’d already called Chris Ballou, the marina’s manager, and asked him to get it out of the water.
Otto rubbed his hands together. “All righty, then. I say it’s time, don’t you, Frances?”
“Way past,” she said, and the two turned and started to make their way downstairs. “Minnie, are you coming?”
“Where?” I called after them. “To do what?”
Neither one of them answered. I did hear laughter, but since that didn’t explain anything, I abandoned my unpacking without a qualm—after all, my aunt had invited me to follow them—and I wandered downstairs, curious and mystified.
By the time I reached the living room, where Eddie was still sleeping on the back of the couch, I’d come up with all sorts of theories about what it might be time for. An evening cocktail was a strong possibility, but somehow that didn’t seem to fit. Other ideas ranged from going for an evening walk (a little late, but possible) to making a crank phone call (nine point nine on the unlikely scale of one to ten) to choosing colors for their wedding (about nine point eight on the same scale).
I followed the sounds of voices and tracked down Aunt Frances and Otto in the kitchen, where they were looking into the cupboard that held baking supplies.
“How about red?” my aunt asked.
Otto nodded. “Cheerful, yet not over the top. An excellent choice. Then again,” he said thoughtfully, “with Minnie here, it’s a sort of celebration. Perhaps we should go with gold.”
“Or blue,” my aunt said. “Choosing her favorite color might be appropriate.”
Nope, I had no idea what was going on here. “What are you two doing?”
Aunt Frances glanced over her shoulder. “Picking sprinkles for the Thursday night ice cream, of course.”
I blinked, then started laughing. “You sound like you’re choosing a wine to go with a meal you’re serving the president of the United States.”
“Sprinkles are a serious business,” Otto said with a straight face, which made me laugh even harder.
“When the last boarder left in September,” Aunt Frances said, taking out the canister filled with gold sprinkles, “we had a dish of ice cream. It happened to be a Thursday night, so we’ve had ice cream every Thursday since. I don’t remember why we started the sprinkles.” She looked at Otto, who was getting three small dishes out of the cupboard. “Do you?”
“Already lost in the mists of time.” He opened the utensil drawer and brandished the scoop. “Is it your turn to scoop, or mine?”
“Yours.”
Amused, I watched the ice cream assembly. “You two have quite a tradition going here.”
“One of many,” my aunt said. “I’m sure you and Ash do things that are just as silly. Would you like whipped cream?” She took a closer look at my face. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. And yes, please, on the whipped cream.”
We sat at the round oak kitchen table, ate ice cream, and chatted about nothing in particular, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.
But all the while, part of my mind was far away. Ash and I had fun together, like Aunt Frances and Otto did, but they had something we didn’t. They had sparkle. Together, they were more than the sum of their parts. So much love flowed between them, it was almost visible. Nothing flowed between Ash and me except friendship. We were good friends, but no more than that, and it was time to say so. It wasn’t fair to either one of us to keep on going like this.
“Minnie,” my aunt said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“My feet are warm and my tummy is full of ice cream. What could possibly be wrong?” I gave her a bright smile. From the expression on her face, she wasn’t convinced I was telling the complete truth, but she nodded and let it go.
Tomorrow, I told myself. I would have a conversation with Ash tomorrow.
• • •
The next day was just as cold as the previous day had been, and I stopped feeling weak-willed for moving to the boardinghouse early. Aunt Frances didn’t care, the marina didn’t care, and Eddie would yell at me no matter what I did, so why endure a few cold and miserable days for the sake of a self-imposed plan?
At lunchtime, I walked downtown, my head bent against the blustery wind. As I walked, I started composing portions of the long talk with Ash I needed to have as soon as possible.
“You’re a great guy, but . . .”
No. That was a horrible start.
“Ash, we need to talk.”
I winced even as I was saying the words. It might be possible to be more trite, but probably not.
“Do you think something is missing from our relationship?”