by Zoe Chant
Again, Sylvie had to wonder if Odilon was living in the real world. Just come back? As if having to close her shop wouldn’t have completely ruined her financially? She’d never get another loan to start another business again! Maybe Odilon just really didn’t get it, if he’d always lived a life where money was no object?
She wondered if it was worth trying to explain any of this to him.
Probably not, she thought, staring at his sulking, pouting face.
“Don’t you think,” Gale said after a moment, “that if your businesses can’t succeed without you resorting to stealing my mate’s ideas, that you could do with returning home to get more training?”
His voice was still low and angry, but it was obvious he was trying to talk sense to Odilon – if he would hear it.
“I know I can do it, though,” Odilon started to say, before Gale cut him off with a shake of his head.
“No, you can’t – not if this is how you react to setbacks, by stealing and trying to sabotage other, better businesses. Is that what you’d do if something didn’t work out once you’re working for your family business? Do you think your father would look kindly on that?”
Odilon scowled. “You don’t know anything about my father.”
Gale’s face hardened. “I do, actually – I’ve worked in one of his restaurants. I was the chef there, so we got to know each other pretty well when I was developing a new menu for him. You’re right when you say he has high expectations and that he’s a tough boss. But he’s also scrupulous. I don’t think he’d like to hear about what you’ve been up to here.”
Immediately, Odilon’s head shot up. “You – you know my father? You have his number?”
“Yeah, I do,” Gale said, nodding. “He’s one of the few shifters who works in the restaurant business, so we bonded a bit over that. I’m pretty sure he’d remember me if I gave him a call.”
A look of fear entered Odilon’s eyes. “If you gave him a call?”
“To tell him about how you used your shifter powers to break into another bakery, steal my mate’s hard work, and then pretend it was your own. I don’t think he’d enjoy that story. Do you?”
Sylvie glanced at Gale. She knew he was capable of being incredibly kind and gentle, and he wasn’t speaking angrily anymore. But his voice was firm, and she knew he meant every word.
“You – you wouldn’t really tell my father, would you?” Odilon quailed. “It – I was just – it was a mistake! I was just scared of failing! That’s all! I really didn’t mean any harm!”
“Better that you fail now and have to learn something from it than later, when it may cost people their jobs,” Gale said, shaking his head. “You said your bakery staff are all your college friends who want to pad the community volunteering section of their resumes – I take it they won’t be hard done by if you close down?”
“Close down?” Odilon asked, blinking.
“Because that’s what you’re going to do,” Gale said firmly. “You’re going to close down your bakery, you’re going to go home, and you’re going to tell your father you need more help and training before you run so much as a dishwashing cycle.”
Sylvie could see a belligerent look entering Odilon’s eyes, but Gale continued before he could say anything.
“You can tell him, or I can. It’s your choice.”
Odilon’s eyes shot up to Gale’s face. His mouth opened as if to protest, but apparently he could see from Gale’s expression that it wouldn’t get him anywhere.
Reluctantly, he hung his head, his lips downturned.
“Could I just… have another chance?” he mumbled after a moment or two. “I promise I’ll –”
“You’re lucky I’m giving you this one,” Gale interrupted him, shaking his head. “You hurt my mate – you don’t want to know what my unicorn is telling me to do with you right now.”
A look of alarm crossed Odilon’s face, and he shook his head, holding up his hands. “All right, fine.” He shifted on his chair, eyes still darting back and forth. “But… you’ll give me a week, right? To close up properly and think about what I’m going to say to Dad?”
Sylvie glanced at Gale, and then nodded. “A week sounds reasonable. I think we can give you that.”
“Though I may give your dad a call in the next little while, just as a social thing,” Gale said, cocking his head. “And I may mention I ran into you. If it turns out you haven’t come clean, well, he and I may have to have a bit of a talk about that.”
Immediately, Odilon nodded. “Fine – you have my word. I’ll tell him. I promise. You can check.”
“Good.” Gale sat back in his chair, and released a long, slow breath. “Then I think we’re done here. You better go start arranging to vacate your lease early, and whatever else you need to do to start closing down.”
“All right,” Odilon said glumly. “I’ll go. And I’ll start doing… all that stuff.”
Sylvie had to wonder if Odilon even knew what, exactly, he had to do in order to close his shop.
But it’s not my problem anymore, she thought with relief – it was a feeling like some kind of oppressive weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt lighter than she had done in months.
I wasn’t going crazy. It was just… a fly shifter, stealing my things. And now he won’t be stealing any more.
She unlocked the bakery’s front door and opened it, letting Odilon leave. She couldn’t quite bring herself to say goodbye to him, but as she watched him trudging down the street in the dusk, his shoulders hunched dejectedly, she felt that same slight twinge of pity.
He tried to ruin you, though, she told herself. She knew she could be soft-hearted, but maybe it wasn’t worth wasting her pity on someone like Odilon. He’d almost ruined her life’s dream – everything she’d ever worked for. And for what? Just to impress his father, instead of admitting he needed his help! Sylvie could feel her head spinning just trying to figure it out.
Lucky I have Gale beside me to deal out the tough love, though, Sylvie thought, looking up at him, her heart warming. Unable to stop herself, she wound her arms around his waist, standing up on her toes to kiss him.
“Well,” Gale said, looking mildly stunned. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but what was that for?”
“You were pretty impressive back there,” Sylvie said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Another minute of that and I would have been calling my own father and confessing to the time I took the last cookie from the tray, and blamed it on the dog.”
Gale laughed lightly, his arms squeezing her gently against him. “I hope you don’t think I went overboard. My unicorn was steaming mad – but then, it has some pretty strong ideas about honor and chivalry. And it doesn’t skimp where protecting its mate is concerned.”
Sylvie shivered at the thought – a delicious shiver that ran the full length of her body, settling in her stomach.
A chivalrous, kind, protective unicorn for a mate, she thought, as she rested her head against Gale’s chest, hearing the beat of his heart in her ear. What could be better?
“Not even a little bit,” she said. “Some people just have to be told things straight. But I’m no good at things like that. I get all flustered. But you, clearly, know exactly what to do, and how to do it.”
The look on Gale’s face told her he’d picked up on her saucy implication – and before she could move, he’d leaned down, kissing her again, so passionately it made her feel breathless – until she realized that that was just the effect he had on her.
He’d taken her breath away from the first moment she’d seen him. She was pretty sure that was never going to change.
Fated mates, she thought, closing her eyes, feeling warmth radiating through every part of her. I guess that’s just what that means.
She knew she had a lot to learn about shifters – Fly shifters are a thing?! Did they draw the short straw or what?! – about the bond she and Gale shared, and about Gale himself. But right now, she couldn’t think
of any better way to spend her future than finding those things out.
Because I love him.
It didn’t feel like a realization – it felt like a simple truth, coming to life inside of her.
I truly love him.
Raising her head, Sylvie gazed up into Gale’s face. As if he’d read her mind, he lowered his lips to hers, kissing her.
Sylvie let her eyes flicker shut, simply savoring the moment. Right now, all she wanted to do was let Gale’s love flow through her, and know that it was forever.
Epilogue
Two Months Later
“All right,” Sylvie said as she secretly slipped an extra chocolate chip mini-cookie into the bag before handing it to the bright-eyed little girl in front of her, “you enjoy your honey cake. And make sure you have a wonderful winter vacation.”
“We will!” the girl trilled, before handing Sylvie the payment her mother had given her. Together, she and her parents made their way out the door, dressed warmly against the early winter chill.
A gust of cold air blew in as they left, and Sylvie shivered a little despite the warmth of the bakery. It wasn’t only a shiver of cold, though – it was a shiver of anticipation.
Glancing at the clock, she bit her lip as she realized she still had three minutes left until she could technically clock off. She’d opened this morning, so she was ready to be done by one in the afternoon, when she’d officially hand over the front of the shop to Emily.
Ordinarily, she didn’t look forward to the end of her work day, since she enjoyed running the bakery and liked being here.
But…
But things had been a little different for the last couple of months.
Of course, she still adored running her little bakery. It was her dream come true, after all. But ever since a little garden shop had opened up down the road – just where Johnson’s Pies and Bakery had once been, in fact – she’d had a good reason for looking forward to the end of her shift.
“I can see you watching that second hand,” Emily laughed as she appeared from out the back with a tray full of fresh apple roses – they’d had an unexpected run on them this morning, so Emily had baked some more for the afternoon rush. “You can go now if you want to.”
Sylvie hesitated. “Well… I don’t know…”
“Oh, stop being so by the book! I think I can manage a couple of minutes extra by myself, Sylvie,” Emily said as she began arranging the apple roses in the open display by the window, the better to tempt passers-by. “I know you want to go see him, and quite frankly, I think it’s adorable. It’s about time you got yourself a guy. So I’m more than happy for you to run off and see him a little early.”
Sylvie bit her lip, wanting to argue a little more – but in the end, the temptation was just too much.
“Thanks, Emily, you’re a gem,” she said, as she threw on her scarf and jacket, and pulled her woolen hat down over her head.
Here on the mountain, the winters came early and cold, though Sylvie was used to it by now. Winter holiday-makers were already beginning to arrive, renting out the cabins that dotted the mountains – and a lot of them wanted to buy freshly baked cakes after a day of hiking, skiing further up on the peak, or just relaxing at home. Her little bakery was thriving.
It helped, she supposed with a smile, that she had her own fancy sign now to attract business – though it wasn’t so much fancy as it was magic, with her sandwich board somehow having sprouted a full bloom of beautiful pink and white flowers, which grew with lush green tendrils from the wood frame around the blackboard. Fancy or not, it was definitely eye-catching, Sylvie thought with a smile as she passed it.
It didn’t take her long to make her way down the street, despite the chilly winds that were blowing. The smile hadn’t left her face, but she found herself smiling a little harder as MacEwan’s Plants and Garden Supplies came into view.
Gale had taken up the lease on Gareth Odilon’s old bakery, which, true to his word, had closed down a week after their chat with him. Sylvie hadn’t heard anything further about it, so she had to assume Gale’s little chat with his father had gone as Odilon had promised as well.
Thank goodness.
She hoped he’d learned his lesson. As much as she wanted to, she wasn’t able to think of Gareth Odilon as evil. Just… stupid, and without much of an idea of how the real world worked. She was still utterly flabbergasted that he’d thought running her out of business wouldn’t be any particularly big deal for her.
Anyway, I don’t want to think about that right now, Sylvie thought, a skip in her step as she made her way through the front gate of the garden supplies shop.
Right now, what she wanted to think about was –
“Whoa.”
Sylvie stopped in her tracks, eyes widening as she caught sight of Gale, wearing nothing but some well-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, lifting a forty-pound bag of soil over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing in order to stack it up in the corner of the shop. The muscles of his forearm and shoulder rippled as he heaved it up to the top of the pile, before wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving the most adorable streak of dirt in its wake.
“Hey, you got a little something just… there,” Sylvie said with a smile as she made her way over to him, pointing to his head. “But leave it. It looks cute. You’ll have customers lining up just to take a peek at you.”
Gale laughed softly as she reached him, leaning down to give her a quick peck on the lips, pulling back a little when she chased his mouth with hers for something more. “I’m a little sweaty right now,” he said apologetically.
“Well, maybe I like that,” she replied, letting a wicked grin twitch at the corner of her lips. “Did you ever think of that, huh? That I like you when you’re all hot and sweaty?”
“You may have mentioned it once or twice,” Gale admitted with a smile, leaning down again and letting her capture his lips with hers, kissing her deeply, as if they hadn’t seen each other in a month instead of only a few hours.
If her mouth hadn’t already been busy kissing, Sylvie would have let out a contented sigh. These last couple of months had been just like a dream. Her bakery was doing better than she ever could have imagined. Gale had found his calling as a nurseryman. Brioche, the big orange blob of a cat, had two laps to painfully knead for at least twenty minutes before he chose one to sit on.
And me and Gale…
Well, Sylvie wasn’t sure what had to be said, there. They were mates. She felt more safe and loved with Gale than she ever had in her entire life. She knew he’d always be there for her, no matter what. Just like she’d always be there for him.
“What time do you finish up here?” she asked breathlessly, when she could finally bring herself to pull away.
“Hmm,” Gale said, sounding just as breathless, his gray eyes looking down into hers. “Well, technically, I shouldn’t really finish until five. But I do have a break coming up, so –”
“Oh! I’m not interrupting anything between you two lovebirds, am I?”
The sound of a voice from the doorway made Sylvie and Gale jump apart, trying their best not to look like they’d been about three seconds away from tearing each other’s clothes off.
Blushing, Sylvie cleared her throat and straightened her hair as Eula James swaggered her way across the shop floor, a knowing look in her eyes and a magazine in her hand.
“Uh, no, of course not,” Sylvie said, once she could force herself to speak. “We were just, uh, talking.”
Eula snorted through her nose, shaking her head. “There’s no need to be so demure in front of ol’ Eula,” she said, with a hearty laugh. “You think I haven’t seen it all before? It does my heart good to see young people so in love.”
She waggled her eyebrows at Sylvie, who could feel her face turning even redder.
“Besides, I consider myself responsible for the two of you getting together,” Eula loftily informed them. “If
I hadn’t told Gale here to stop by your bakery, why, you might never have met.”
“That’s true,” Gale said. “Best recommendation I ever got.”
“You only said that because you thought he was Aubrey Z., and you wanted him to review my bakery!” Sylvie protested. “You didn’t have romance on your mind at all!”
“Ahh, but didn’t I tell you he was a handsome one?” Eula said, prodding Sylvie in the ribs. “Hmm?”
“All right, yes you did.” Sylvie rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She should have known it was useless to argue with Eula. “Thank you.”
“Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.” Eula slapped the magazine down on the shop counter. “I came here because I was sure you hadn’t seen this yet, considering it only came out today.”
Frowning, Sylvie looked down at the magazine. She recognized it right away – Dish & Plate, one of the swankiest food and baking magazines in the country. The price was a bit too much for her to cough up for it regularly, but she loved going through its silky pages, filled with plush photos of luscious-looking food and drinks, whenever she had a spare moment at a drug store or newsstand.
“It’s a magazine?” she said, looking up at Eula.
Eula sighed, as if Sylvie were being a bit slow. “Turn to page sixteen.”
Still a little mystified, Sylvie picked up the magazine, flicking over the pages until –
“Oh. Oh wow.”
Sylvie had to read the words at the top of the page several times over to make sure she wasn’t simply hysterically hallucinating. But no – even after seven re-reads, the words remained the same: We commissioned the renowned and mysterious Aubrey Z. to hit the road, reviewing hidden gems of American food: first up, a tiny bakery, secluded in the mountain town of Girdwood Springs…
Sylvie closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the words were still on the page: they still said Sylvie’s Sweets and Bakery, and there was definitely only one Sylvie’s Sweets and Bakery in Girdwood Springs.
Sylvie swallowed.