3.1

Surprised, Calder wondered where the man could stuff a wad of chew, his jaw was so damn tight.

“Might as well head on back up your river,” Jonah said, at length. “Your like isn’t wanted here at Blue’s.”

He said it as if Calder’s being a Blue was somehow . . . less Blue.

“Once the town folk find out why you’re here, you won’t be wanted by them, either. Seems you River Blues still haven’t figured out how to tell the difference between where you’re wanted and where you’re not.”

It was quite a speech, Calder thought. But rather than put him off, or piss him off, it did quite the opposite. The old man wants me gone, and it’s not because I’m a St. Croix Blue, he thought, surprised yet again. Calder didn’t know Jonah Blue from Adam, but he did know people, how to read them, how to work with them, for them, or get work out of them as the case may be. The success of the family business depended on it. Same could be said for Blue Harbor Farm. Jonah might well hate Calder with the kind of deep-s