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but Ruby had nothing more to say. Lis suspected that Alec was responsible for the porch as well, but there was no point in asking. Not right now, anyway. Lis broke down the cardboard boxes the groceries had been delivered in, folding them flat and stacking them in a pile.
    â€œYou still leave these next to the door out front?” she asked.
    Ruby nodded. “Tom’ll pick ’em up when he comes back through.”
    â€œWhat if it rains?”
    â€œWell, then, I expect they’ll get wet.” Ruby still hadn’t looked up. “Less a tarp be spread over the lot.”
    â€œWhere would I find a tarp if I needed one?”
    â€œIn the shed out by the garage.”
    Lis dragged the cardboard outside and set the pile to the left of the door where it would be out of the way. She went back into the store, poured herself a second cup of coffee, and told Ruby, “I think I’ll take that walk now.”
    â€œTake your time.”
    The walk to the bay was a short one. Lis took off her sandals and picked her way carefully over the rocky jetty until she found a dry flat spot. She sat and sipped her coffee and watched the boats out on the bay. The local watermen had their own boats, their own crews, their own favorite spots for whatever they were after on that particular day. Generally they were courteous to each other, respecting their neighbors’ territory. She’d heard all the old stories about how out-of-towners occasionally slipped into their waters and tried to lift crab pots that weren’t theirs, how the locals would surround the interlopers until they turned over their ill-gotten catch to whomever they’d poached from. Few made a return trip, her uncle Eben used to say, once they’d been found out by the islanders.
    For years the bay had felt the effects of bothoverfishing and pollution, and watermen all around the bay had suffered terribly. Cannonball Island’s crabbers and oystermen were no exception. Many a family had moved from the island, not to return, and many a father had sold his traps and gone onto the mainland seeking employment. Lis had heard that the bay was making a comeback, and judging by the number of boats out on the water that morning, she believed it was true. The Chesapeake had sustained her family since the early 1800s. She had only kind thoughts for it now.
    Her thoughts turned to Alec Jansen, and they weren’t as kind.
    She couldn’t help but be curious about how he managed to talk Ruby into making so many changes. The woman had stubbornly refused to listen to Lis or Owen or anyone else whenever they’d suggested making any sort of change in the old general store, so how had Alec succeeded where so many of Lis’s relatives had failed?
    â€œTime was right,” Ruby had told her the night before.
    â€œYeah, well, time’s been right for a long time,” Lis muttered.
    She finished the coffee and dangled her feet over the edge of the rock. In the water below, a large blue claw crab picked at the remains of a fish, probably bait that had been tossed overboard by one of the boats that by now was miles away. Lis peered closer, saw the red tips of its claws, and for a moment she was five years old and watching her older brotherempty the bucket in which he’d kept the crabs he’d caught that morning.
    â€œSee that red on the claws?” Owen had held up a squirming crab. “That tells you this is a grown-up girl-crab. We call them sooks. The guys don’t have red there on their claws.”
    Owen used to catch crabs by hand, but Lis had never learned the degree of stealth required to grab one quickly enough to avoid those claws. She’d been pinched enough by the time she was twelve to no longer make the effort.
    She watched the crab feed until it disappeared among the rocks and she lost her excuse to avoid thinking about Alec and what he was up to.
    He’d always been a handsome thing, and she