‘‘The wife’s picking me up some today.’’ He shoved the thawing alewives they used for bait into the trap. ‘‘Sure helps matters to know you got a woman to do for you some.’’

‘‘Uh-huh.’’ Ethan shoved the steering stick with one hand, picked up the gaff with the other, and timed the chop and the distance.

‘‘A man spends the day working on the water, it’s a comfort to know his woman’s waiting for him.’’

A little surprised that they were having a conversation, Ethan nodded. ‘‘I suppose. We’ll just finish up this line, Jim, then head in.’’

Jim culled the next pot, let the silence settle between them. A few gulls were having what Jim thought of as a pissing match overhead, screaming and diving and threatening each other over loose fish parts.

‘‘You know, me and Bess, we’ll be married thirty years come next spring.’’

‘‘Is that so?’’

‘‘Steadies a man, a woman does. You wait too long to marry up, though, you get set in your ways.’’

‘‘I guess.’’

‘‘You’d be around thirty now, wouldn’t you, Cap’n?’’

‘‘That’s right.’’

‘‘Don’t want to get set in your ways.’’

‘‘I’ll keep that in mind,’’ Ethan told him and shot out the gaff.

Jim merely sighed and gave up.

WHEN ETHAN WANDERED into the boatyard, Cam was at the skill saw and three young boys were sanding the hull. Or pretending to.

‘‘You hire a new crew?’’ Ethan asked as Simon trotted over to investigate.

Cam glanced to where Seth chattered away with Danny and Will Miller. ‘‘It keeps them out of my hair. You give up on crabs today?’’

‘‘Pulled in enough.’’ He pulled out a cigar and lit it while he gazed thoughtfully out the open cargo doors. ‘‘Rain’s coming down pretty hard.’’

‘‘Tell me about it.’’ Cam sent an accusing scowl toward the streaming windows. ‘‘That’s why those three were in my hair. The little one’ll talk your ears blue. And if you don’t have the others doing something to keep them busy, they make trouble out of thin air.’’

‘‘Well.’’ Ethan puffed out smoke, watched the kids send Simon into ecstasy with rough rubs and scratches. ‘‘At the rate they’re going, they’ll have that hull sanded down in ten or twenty years.’’

‘‘That’s something we have to talk about.’’

‘‘Hiring on those kids for the next two decades?’’

‘‘No, work.’’ It was as good a time as any to take a break. Cam stooped and pumped iced tea out of the cooler. ‘‘I got a call from Tod Bardette this morning.’’

‘‘The friend of yours who wants the fishing boat?’’

‘‘That’s right. Now, Bardette and I go back a ways. He knows what I can do.’’

‘‘He offer you another race?’’