Chapter 7

“Iguess I was due a little luck to come my way,” Sylvie said the next morning over breakfast.

Her hair was still tousled from sleep – well, not that they’d gotten a lot of sleep – but Gale thought she looked all the more sexy for it. Even in her old bathrobe, she still looked like the most desirable woman in the world to him – a woman he hoped he’d be making breakfast for every day for the rest of their lives.

She gazed down at the eggs benedict he’d spent the last half hour whipping up. All they’d had to eat yesterday was the slice of honey cake they’d emerged for, and then a sandwich instead of a proper dinner. Gale could only speak for himself, but he was absolutely starving, and thankfully Sylvie had had the ingredients for his favorite breakfast in her fridge.

“It’s almost a shame to eat this,” she said, picking up a fork, “because it looks seriously awesome.”

We have provided for our mate! We have brought her sustenance!Gale’s unicorn pranced joyfully, tossing its head and kicking up its heels. Gale resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“I got a lot of practice with it – I worked at a breakfast bar for a little while.” Unable to wait any longer, he broke the yolk of one of the poached eggs balanced on the muffin and bacon, digging in.

“Okay, I take it back, I am definitely eating this,” Sylvie said. “That bacon smell can’t be resisted.”

Despite how busy he was with his prancing, overjoyed unicorn and his hunger, Gale hadn’t failed to notice that Sylvie had mentioned she was due some good luck.

She mentioned that yesterday too,he thought. It might be just the garden, but I think there’s something more to it.

Immediately, his unicorn raised its head. Then we must help her.

Gale nodded. Of course he would. He’d do anything for her. Anything that it was within his power to give her, he would.

She’s my mate,he thought, his chest aching as he stared across the table at her. My perfect, beautiful mate.

“You mentioned you’ve been having a bit of bad luck recently yesterday as well,” Gale said, once Sylvie had finished eating and was sipping her coffee. “Is it something I could help you with?”

Sylvie hesitated. “Well… I’m not sure. And honestly, I don’t like to complain and drag you into my problems…”

Immediately, Gale reached across the table, covering her hand with his. “Sylvie, you’re my mate. There’s no such thing as something that’s only your problem. From now on, anything that’s bothering you is also my problem, and I’ll do anything I can to help you solve it. So try me. Anything I can do to help, I will.”

Sylvie blinked her huge green eyes at him, as if surprised. “Thank you,” she said sincerely after a moment or two. “I guess… I guess I’ve been doing things on my own for so long now, I kind of forgot what it’s like to ask someone to help out. Well, you know, I have Emily to help me at the shop, and everyone in town is so friendly, so I…” She shook her head. “I’m getting caught up. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Gale said, smiling. “I do.”

She told him the whole story over the dregs of their coffee – about how well her bakery had been doing at first, but how reliant it was on tourists passing through, so when Johnson’s Pies and Bakery had opened up down the street with their bigger, fancier storefront and eye-drawing sign, she’d had a huge drop-off in trade. And then, on top of that, they’d started somehow stealing her recipes, and bringing out products she’d spent months planning and developing before she had the chance.

“I just don’t get how they’re doing it,” Sylvie said, her frustration clear in her voice. “I never discuss these things with anyone except Emily. And I trust Emily completely – I know she’d never do a thing like that. There’s no one else in town who I think would do it either, but they couldn’t anyway, since no one knows my recipes except me and Emily.”

Gale frowned. He had a suspicion, but first, he thought, he needed to know a little more.

“Have you ever met the person who runs the other bakery?”

Sylvie shook her head. “No, never – as far as I know, neither has anyone else in town. He’s not a local – I’ve only seen him from a distance when he’s turned up and gone straight inside, I guess to check on how things are going. No one really knows his staff, either. They’re not from Girdwood Springs.”

“I see.” Gale swirled the last of his coffee around the bottom of his cup. “So you never noticed anything… unusual about him?”

Sylvie cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” Gale said, shaking his head. “I don’t think you would have noticed anything.”

It’s not like a human can tell a shifter just by looking at them, after all.

“You’re thinking… maybe he’s someone like you?” Sylvie asked slowly, looking at him from across the table.

“Yes,” Gale admitted. “It wouldn’t be the first time shifters have used their powers for the wrong reasons, unfortunately. I don’t really like that it was my first thought, but if there’s really no way Johnson’s Pies and Bakery could have seen your recipes, then it’s something worth thinking about.”

“But… how?” Sylvie asked. “I think I would have noticed, oh, I don’t know, a dragon hanging around my shop, eavesdropping.”

Gale laughed. “I’m sure you would have. But as you saw with me yesterday, shifters don’t have to be in their shifter form to use their powers.”

“Oh… so they could be a shifter type with super-hearing, or something like that?”

“Maybe,” Gale said. “But there’s also shifters who have telepathy powers, though I don’t know exactly how it works. I don’t think they can read anyone’s mind at will.”

“Okay… well… that’s a relief,” Sylvie said, looking a little rattled. She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have telepathy powers, do you? You, uh, didn’t hear all the stuff I was thinking about you yesterday, did you?”

“No, I don’t,” Gale said, laughing again. “But I can probably guess.”

“I’ll bet,” Sylvie mumbled, burying her face in her hands and shaking her head, but Gale could see her shoulders shaking as she laughed. “Well, that aside,” she said when she emerged, “is that the kind of thing we’d be dealing with? Shifters with extraordinary powers like that?!”

“Potentially,” Gale said cautiously. “But mythical shifters are very, very rare. If this guy is a shifter, he’s probably something much more mundane.”

“Maybe he’s one of the cats that prowl around the alley,” Sylvie said, frowning. “You’re right, I probably wouldn’t think too hard about that. I bet he’s been eating all the scraps I put out for the other strays, too.”

“If he’s been using his powers to steal your recipes, then I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“But… I don’t really understand,” Sylvie said, shaking her head. “Why go to all this trouble? Why not just use his own recipes?”

“Well, the food industry can be pretty cutthroat,” Gale pointed out. “Some recipes can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, if they’re a signature of the brand.”

“But I’m just a small-town baker!” Sylvie wailed, throwing up her hands. “I’m not exactly a titan of industry, or even trying to open a second bakery! That’s for big city stuff, not me!”

“That’s true,” Gale admitted. He sighed. “I suppose we won’t know until we have a chance to find out more. Or just ask Johnson himself, whoever he might be.”

Sylvie’s eyebrows drew together. “You want me to go in there and confront him?”

“No, nothing like that,” Gale said quickly. “We don’t know who this guy is. I want to find out more before we make any kind of move.”

“What should we do, then?”

Gale paused. “Well, I’m guessing he already knows you, and Emily as well. But I only arrived in town yesterday. I could always go into his bakery and have a quick look around – nothing much, just ask a few inoffensive questions, things like that.”

“That couldn’t hurt,” Sylvie said. “You could be all, ‘Oh my God, this is the best pie I’ve ever had! Where do you get your recipes from? I want to speak to the manager to tell him personally just how great this pie is!’ And then at least you might be able to get a look at this Johnson, though like I said, it seems like he’s almost never there.”

“Something like that,” Gale said, laughing. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

Sylvie nodded. “Yeah – better than my plan, which was ‘stew angrily about it for weeks and feel powerless.’”

Our mate should never feel like that! Gale’s unicorn reared up, fury flashing in its eyes. Our mate should always know her value, and know that she is the most powerful, the most beautiful being in the world!

And for once, Gale found that he couldn’t agree with his unicorn more.

“Oh my God – no. No way.”

Sylvie stopped in her tracks where she’d been walking next to him on the sidewalk. After they’d finished breakfast, they’d decided there was no time like the present to put their plan into action, and since the day was one of those fine, clear fall days where the wind was cool but the sun was warm, they’d walked to Girdwood Springs’ main street.

They’d only just turned the corner, but Gale could see right away what had made Sylvie cry out: the large blackboard sign in front of Johnson’s Pies and Bakery.

The sign that read:

This week’s special: hot apple and thyme pie!

Next week’s special: butterscotch honey cake!

Gale glanced at Sylvie, taking in the furious expression on her face. Her eyebrows were drawn together, her jaw clenched. Her eyes flashed with rage.

“No way,” she said again, shaking her head. “Those… those assholes. They’re not stealing my grandma’s recipe from me. This means war.”

Gale felt his own corresponding anger simmering within him. He’d needed only to glance at the look on Sylvie’s face to know how much her grandmother – and her grandmother’s honey cake recipe – had meant to her.

But still, he couldn’t let Sylvie take any risks by marching into Johnson’s Pies and Bakery and confronting him herself – which she seemed to be extremely determined to do, judging by the way she began marching angrily up the street toward it.

“Sylvie –” Gale called out to her, reaching out to touch her arm gently, hoping to bring her back to herself. “Sylvie, wait a moment.”

Sylvie glanced back at him, angry tears in her eyes. Gale’s unicorn reared up at the sight of them, churning the air with its hooves, fury coursing through every sinew of its being.

Destroy them! Destroy the ones who have made our mate feel this way! It is our duty!

Gale was completely in sympathy with how his unicorn felt, but he wasn’t sure they should jump straight to destruction just yet – that might get the police involved. Right now, he thought it might be better to stick to their original plan… and if that didn’t work, then move on to destruction.

“Sylvie, I understand how you must feel. But let me just do what we originally talked about for now. They haven’t started selling the honey cake yet. It’s still yours. Let me see what I can find out – and if that doesn’t work, I have a few other ideas I could try.”

Such as destruction,his unicorn seethed. Gale did his best to ignore it.

Sylvie gazed up at him, her lips pressed together in a thin line. She blinked back her tears, taking in a shaky breath. “Okay,” she muttered after a long moment. “You’re right – going in there guns blazing probably won’t do anything. But I really want to know how this keeps happening. I told no one about the honey cake plan. Not even Emily. I only just finished working out the recipe yesterday.”

“I promise you Sylvie, we’ll get to the bottom of this,” Gale said, putting his hands on her shoulders. He meant it, too – even if he did have to resort to his unicorn’s suggestion of destruction, he was going to make sure whoever this Johnson was wasn’t going to walk away with another customer who should have been Sylvie’s.

Sylvie nodded, her eyes still damp, but Gale could see in them that she trusted him. “Where should I wait for you?” she asked.

“Maybe it’d be best for you to wait for me at Eula’s diner,” Gale said. “That’s far enough away that I don’t think anyone at Johnson’s would spot you waiting for me.”

“Yeah.” Sylvie nodded. “And we can debrief over chili dogs.”

“Sounds great,” Gale said, smiling. Already, some of Sylvie’s humor was returning. It heartened him to see. “All right, I’ll meet you there. Give me half an hour or so.”

Sylvie nodded again, then stood up on tip-toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck,” she whispered, her breath warm against his ear, making him shiver.

Gale watched her back for a moment as she made her way down the street, until a bend in the road carried her out of sight. Part of him still couldn’t quite believe she was his.

But she is. And we are hers,his unicorn said, raising its head proudly. And we must prove we are worthy of that honor.

Gale nodded in agreement as he walked the rest of the way down the street to Johnson’s Pies and Bakery. The door was made of wood, and Gale had had enough problems with that recently that he still hesitated before touching it.

Are you over that now?he asked his unicorn, which only indignantly tossed its head in response.

We have found our mate.

Gale decided to take that as a yes, and, thankfully, the door didn’t burst into bloom when he touched it. He pushed it open, stepping into the bakery.

Looking around, Gale had to admit it was a perfectly nice place – not cozy like Sylvie’s was, but bright and airy, with a white Laminex counter and fluorescently lit display bench. The tables were white and didn’t have flowers or tablecloths on them.

It looked… well, it looked pretty boring, Gale thought, despite the fact it was clearly a professional operation. The kind of place where, unlike a lot of truck stops or other places you might stop during a road trip, you knew you wouldn’t get food poisoning. But on the other hand, it was totally devoid of charm, warmth or humor. It was the complete opposite of Sylvie’s bakery.

“Good morning, sir!” chirped a young woman as she emerged from the back room. “Are you interested in trying one of our pies or baked goods?”

Gale cocked his head, regarding her, but he didn’t get any sense that she was a shifter. She was probably just employed here, and probably didn’t even know the recipes she was selling were stolen.

“I definitely am,” he said with a smile. “I saw you might have honey cake here?”

“Oh, I’m sorry sir,” the girl said apologetically. “We’re not selling those until next week. But this week we have an apple pie special! Perhaps you’d like to try that instead?”

“Okay, sure,” Gale said, nodding. “I’ll get one of those. It comes with ice cream, I guess?”

“It sure does.” The girl nodded. “Let me just heat one up in the oven for you – that’ll be about five minutes, if that’s okay?”

“No problem at all,” Gale said, taking a seat at one of the tables.

His pie came out five minutes later, served with a smile from the waitress and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. It smelled great, Gale thought – but that wasn’t surprising, if this bakery was using Sylvie’s recipes. But the first bite revealed the difference: although Gale could taste the thyme, the cinnamon and sugar sprinkled over the crust, even the hint of bay leaf that should have given the pie a little something extra, the flavor was just… flat. It couldn’t compare with either of the tarts Gale had eaten at Sylvie’s bakery, or the honey cake they’d eaten together.

Maybe it’s just because Sylvie is my mate,Gale thought… but he didn’t think so. It was just that Sylvie had poured her heart and soul into her cooking like a true artist, while this bakery seemed to be only making the color-by-numbers version of her product. It was fine, but it couldn’t compare to the real thing.

Still, he finished up the apple pie and ice cream, not wanting his next words to seem too suspicious – though he realized he’d have to stop eating sweet pies and tarts at some stage!

“That was amazing,” he said, when the waitress appeared to take his plate. “Is the chef around? I’d really like to tell him myself how much I enjoyed that.”

The waitress shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, sir – the baker isn’t in at the moment. But the owner is here, if you’d like to speak to him? I’m sure he’d be very happy to know!”

So the baker isn’t the owner,Gale thought, as he told the waitress that he’d love to do just that. Interesting.

It didn’t take long for the owner to appear – he emerged from the back room, a tall, surprisingly young man with light hair, who blinked as he looked at Gale, his eyes narrowing.

Ah,Gale thought, working hard to keep his own reaction off his face. He could feel the little tingling sensation at the back of his neck that told him he was looking at another shifter.

He couldn’t tell what this guy shifted into, of course – only that he could shift.

I suppose that’s enough to confirm my suspicions, however,he thought, feeling disappointed. Sure, it gave them an answer to their puzzle, but Gale was always saddened when shifters used their powers for the wrong reasons.

“So… I heard you enjoyed the apple pie,” the man said, still looking at Gale a little shiftily.

“I definitely did,” Gale said with a smile and a nod. He didn’t feel great about being deceptive, but he knew that he couldn’t exactly accuse him out of nowhere – he and Sylvie needed a little more information first. “It was delicious. I just wanted to let you know myself.”

“Well, if you liked it that much, you can leave us a review online,” the man said, the suspicion leaving his face just a little. After all, Gale thought, he must have run into other shifters at random before. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. “You can go into as much detail as you like – definitely say how much you liked everything about the shop.”

“Uh, sure,” Gale said, nodding. “I can do that.”

“You can do it right now if you want to,” the man said. “You got a phone with you?”

“Oh – I do, but I’m kind of in a hurry just now,” Gale said. “I just wanted to let you know in person. But I’ll definitely leave a review later today, once I get to where I’m going.”

“You definitely should.” The man – Johnson, assuming that wasn’t just what he’d decided to call his shop – leaned forward, and for the first time, Gale realized how much he was sweating. “You should definitely also say how unique and different our goods are – how original and special.”

Gale resisted the urge to grind his teeth. “So… you come up with all of them yourself, do you?”

“Oh, yes,” Johnson said confidently. “It’s all me. I aim to be the best – the only – baker in this town – and I think with our products, we can do it.”

Is it time yet for us to destroy this… being?Gale’s unicorn demanded, its flanks shivering with rage.

“Mm. Well. Good luck,” Gale said, forcing a smile onto his face.

This man is dishonorable!his unicorn raged as Gale paid for his pie, then, as politely as he could, took his leave, Johnson’s voice calling Don’t forget to leave that review! following him out the door. We should tell him he is a disgrace to shifters! He has used his gifts to harm our mate!

Back outside in the clear, clean air, Gale took a deep breath, telling himself to calm down. Yes, Johnson had been infuriating. But he couldn’t do anything just yet.

First,he thought, as he started off down the street, I have to tell Sylvie.