Ethan smiled. He liked Mr. Monroe well enough, though the man had a bone-deep stingy streak. He ran Monroe’s Crab House with a tightly closed fist. But, as far as Ethan could tell, every man’s son who ran a picking plant complained about profits.

Ethan pushed his own cap back, scratched the nape of his neck where sweat and damp hair tickled. ‘‘Good enough.’’

‘‘You’re in early today.’’

‘‘Storm’s coming.’’

Monroe nodded. Already his crab pickers who had been working under the shade of striped awnings were preparing to move inside. Rain would drive the tourists inside as well, he knew, to drink coffee or eat ice cream sundaes. Since he was half owner of the Bayside Eats, he didn’t mind.

‘‘Looks like you got about seventy bushels there.’’

Ethan let his smile widen. Some might have said there was a hint of the pirate in the look. Ethan wouldn’t have been insulted, but he’d have been surprised. ‘‘Closer to ninety, I’d say.’’ He knew the market price, to the penny, but understood they would, as always, negotiate. He took out his negotiating cigar, lit it, and got to work.

The first fat drops of rain began to fall as he motored toward home. He figured he’d gotten a fair price for his crabs—his eighty-seven bushels of crabs. If the rest of the summer was as good, he was going to consider dropping another hundred pots next year, maybe hiring on a part-time crew.

Oystering on the Bay wasn’t what it had been, not since parasites had killed off so many. That made the winters hard. A few good crabbing seasons were what he needed to dump the lion’s share of the profits into the new business—and to help pay the lawyer’s fee. His mouth tightened at that thought as he rode out the swells toward home.

They shouldn’t need a damn lawyer. They shouldn’t have to pay some slick-suited talker to clear their father’s good name. It wouldn’t stop the whispers around town anyway. Those would only stop when people found something juicier to chew on than Ray Quinn’s life and death.

And the boy, Ethan mused, staring out over the water that trembled under the steady pelting of rain. There were some who liked to whisper about the boy who looked back at them with Ray Quinn’s dark-blue eyes.

He didn’t mind for himself. As far as Ethan was concerned people could wag their tongues about him until they fell out of their flapping mouths. But he minded, deeply, that anyone would speak a dark word about the man he’d loved with every beat of his heart.

So he would work his fingers numb to pay the lawyer. And he would do whatever it took to guard the child.