I pick it up from the back so its claws can’t reach my hand. It grabs ahold of the edge of the plank, but I pull it off.

“How’d you do that?” he asks.

I turn my hand and show him. “They can’t reach you . . . well, most of the time. Sometimes a big, smart one will figure it out and reach under themselves and getcha.”

Just then, I get pinched and drop the crab, which makes another run for it.

Ronan laughs. Hard.

“Really?” I ask, going for the crab again. “You’re laughing at me? You’re still lying on the deck after being taken down by something the size of a pancake.”

Ronan stands. “I wasn’t taken down. I was just resting.”

Then he reaches out to take the crab from me. He turns the crab toward his own face, looks it in the eye, and smiles. “He bubbles.”

“Yeah, they do that to keep oxygen moving through their gills,” I tell him. “Now put it back in the bucket. Grammy will make some great crab cakes out of it. With extra tartar sauce. You’ll love them.”

He looks at me. “Really? She’ll make crab cakes?”

“Yeah, she sure will.”

He stares down at the crab. And then he lifts the crab and holds it about six inches in front of his face. “He doesn’t look tasty.”

“Wait until you see him with buttered bread crumbs.”

His mouth swings to the side a bit. Then he looks the bubbling crab in the eyes and says, “I dub you with the name Darwin. And now you owe me one, Darwin.”

He winds up his arm and throws the crab well beyond the reach of chicken on string. It lands with a splash in the marsh.

He tries to hide his smile but doesn’t do a great job of it.

“Wait. What? Why would you do that?”

He shrugs and smiles bigger. “Sorry. He was beautiful and just such a good fighter. I had to let him go.”

“It’s okay. That was better than eating crab cakes any day,” I say, thinking about how much Papa Joseph would have liked him. He would have said Ronan is a good soul, and I would have to agree.

Chapter 18

WHO WATCHES YOU WHILE YOU EAT A SANDWICH?

I’m so happy when Brandy calls me to ask if I want to come for lunch that I have to keep myself from cartwheeling into a wall. But with every bubble of happiness that rises inside, the little voice taps me on the shoulder.

When I arrive at Seaside, I run into Ronan. “Hey,” he says.

I see Brandy and Tressa sitting down near the water at the picnic table already.

“Hey,” I say. “How’re you doing?”

He looks back over his shoulder. “Better than you, I think.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He shrugs. “Nothin’.” He pulls some gum out of his pocket. “You want some?”