After I’d absorbed his gratified smile, I moved on to another issue. I didn’t know how to approach my question, so finally I simply asked him. “Have you been out in my woods back of the house?”

His face went absolutely blank.

“Why would I do that?” he said.

“I didn’t ask for your motivation. I asked if you had been there.” I know evasion when I hear it.

“No,” he said.

“That’s bad news.”

“Why?”

“Because the Weres tell me a fairy’s been back there very recently.” I kept my eyes fixed on his. “And if it’s not you, who could it be?”

“There aren’t many fairies left,” Claude said.

Again, evasion. “If there are other fairies that didn’t make it in before the portal was shut, you could hang around with them,” I said. “You wouldn’t need to stay with me, with my little dash of fairy blood. Yet here you are. And somewhere in my woods is yet another fairy.” I eyed his expression. “I don’t see you excited about tracking down whoever it is. What’s the deal? Why don’t you dash out there, find the fairy, do some bonding, and be happy?”

Claude looked down. “The last portal to close was in your woods,” he said. “Possibly it’s not completely shut. And I know Dermot, your great-uncle, was on the outside. If Dermot is the fairy the Weres sensed, he wouldn’t be glad to see me.”

I thought he would have more to say, but he stopped right there.

That was plenty of bad news, and another whopping dollop of dodging the issue. I was still dubious about his goals, but Claude was family, and I had precious little family left. “All right,” I said, opening a kitchen drawer where I stowed odds and ends. “Here’s a key. We’ll see how this pans out. I have to go to work this afternoon, by the way. And we have to have a talk. You know that I’ve got a boyfriend, right?” I was already feeling kind of embarrassed.