Dead in the Family

“Are you a prude?” He seemed genuinely curious.

“No!” But after a second, I said, “But maybe compared to you, yes! I like my privacy. I get to decide who sees me naked. Do you get my point?”

“Yes. Objectively speaking, you have beautiful points.”

I thought the top of my head would pop off. “I didn’t expect this when I told you that you could stay with me. You like men.”

“Oh, yes, I definitely prefer men. But I can appreciate beauty. I have visited the other side of the fence.”

“I probably wouldn’t have let you stay here if I’d known that,” I said.

Claude shrugged, as if to say, “Wasn’t I smart to keep it from you, then?”

“Listen,” I said, and then stopped, because I was rattled. No matter what the circumstances, seeing Claude naked. Well, your first reaction wouldn’t be rage, either. “I’m going to tell you a few things, and I want you to take me seriously.”

He waited, brush in hand, looking only politely attentive.

“Number one. I have a boyfriend, and he’s a vampire, and I’m not interested in cheating on him, and that includes seeing other guys naked. in my bathroom,” I tacked on hastily, thinking of twoeys of all sorts. “If you can’t respect that, you need to leave, and you’ll just have to cry all the way home. Number two. I’m having company tonight, a little kid I’m babysitting, and you better act appropriate around him. You picking up what I’m laying down?”

“No nudity, be nice to the human kid.”

“Right.”

“Is the child yours?”

“If he were mine, I’d be raising him, you can bet your money. He’s Hadley’s. She was my cousin, the daughter of my aunt Linda. She was the, ah, the girlfriend of Sophie-A

“I like children,” Claude told me. “I’ll behave. And I’m sorry to have upset you.” He gave a stab at sounding contrite.

“Fu

“I’m crying inside,” he said, smiling a wicked smile.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said, turning away to complete my bathroom routine alone and unobserved.

I’d calmed down by the time I got to work. After all, I thought, Claude has probably seen a gazillion people naked in his time. Most supes didn’t think nudity was any big deal. The fact that Claude and I were distantly related—my great-grandfather was his grandfather—wouldn’t make any difference to him; in fact, it wouldn’t make any difference to most of the supes. So, I told myself stoutly, no big deal. When I hit a slow time at work, I called Eric’s cell and left a message to tell him I was expecting to babysit a child that night. “If you can come over, great, but I wanted you to know ahead of time that someone else will be here,” I told the voice mail. Hunter would make a pretty effective chaperone. Then I thought about my new upstairs roomer. “Plus, I kind of forgot to tell you something the other night, and probably you aren’t going to like it much. Also, I miss you.” There was a beep. My message time was up. Well. good. There was no telling what I would’ve said next.

The tracker, Heidi, was supposed to arrive in Bon Temps tonight. It seemed like a year since Eric had decided to send her over to check my land. I felt a little concerned when I thought of her arrival. Would Remy think Hunter attending the funeral was so bad, if he knew who else was dropping by my house? Was I being irresponsible? Was I putting the child at risk?

No, it was paranoid to think so. Heidi was coming to scout around in my woods.

I had thrown off my niggling worry by the time I was preparing to leave Merlotte’s. Ke

Ke

“Have a nice night!” Ke

On the other hand, lots of men would be nervous about working with Ke

I got home about five minutes before Remy arrived with Hunter. I’d had just enough time to pull off my work clothes, toss them in the hamper, and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt before Remy knocked at the front door.

I looked through the peephole before I opened the door, on the theory that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Hey, Remy!” I said. He was in his early thirties, a quietly good-looking man with thick light brown hair. He was wearing clothes suitable for an evening visitation at a funeral home: khakis, a white-and-brown-striped broadcloth shirt, polished loafers. He’d looked more comfortable in the fla

I squatted down and said, Hi, Hunter. I didn’t say anything out loud, but I smiled at him.

He’d almost forgotten. His face lit up. Aunt Sookie! he said. Pleasure ran through his head, pleasure and excitement. “I have a new truck,” he said out loud, and I laughed.

“You go

“Thanks, Sookie,” Remy said.

“Do I look like my mama, Dad?” Hunter asked.

“Why?” Remy was startled.

“That’s what Aunt Sookie says.”

Remy was used to little shocks like this by now, and he knew it would only get worse. “Yes, you look like your mom, and she was good-looking,” Remy told him. “You’re a lucky young man, Son.”

“I don’t want to look like a girl,” Hunter said doubtfully.

You don’t. “Not a bit,” I said. “Hunter, your room is right here.” I indicated the open doorway. “I used to sleep in this room when I was a kid,” I said.

Hunter looked around, alert and cautious. But the low twin bed with its white bedspread and the old furniture and the worn rug by the bed were all homey and unthreatening. “Where will you be?” he asked.

“Right here, across the hall,” I told him, opening the door to my room. “You just call out, and I’ll come a-ru