by Sable Sylvan
“He’s not?” asked Rufus. “I thought you were just covering for him before.”
“Why would I cover for Jevon?” asked Jennifer. “We’re just friends.”
“Well…he wants to be more than that, doesn’t he?” asked Rufus. Jennifer’s silence spoke volumes — and her crimson cheeks were the appendices.
“Of…course,” said Rufus. “Well — I assumed that you…didn’t want us to fight over you or something.”
“Like I’d be so vain,” said Jennifer. “Okay — I would be that vain. And, I didn’t — don’t — want you two to fight, because neither of you are dating me, so I don’t get the problem.”
“We both want you,” said Rufus. “That’s problem enough. And, we’re from rival crews. And, we just plain out don’t get along.”
Rufus led Jennifer out of the berry patch and down a cobblestone paved path that looked like something out of a frikkin’ fairy tale.
“Watch your step,” said Rufus, reaching out to take Jennifer’s hand. Jennifer took Rufus’ hand gingerly. Rufus entangled his fingers between Jennifer’s, just as the marionberry vines twirled ‘round the trellises, and just as those trellises supported the vines, so too did Rufus carefully guide Jennifer through the steep path through the woods.
The path wound to a large English garden, out of place in the Port Jameson Woods. It was lush with flowers in shades of white and lavender. It was like delicate lace against the hard wood of the forest.
“What is this place?” asked Jennifer.
“Hemlock Lodge, of course,” said Rufus, leading Jennifer to a stone wall covered in vines. He reached into the vines, just as Jevon had reached through the marionberry canes, and found the handle to a door. He opened it and pushed the soft vines aside so Jennifer could walk through the door.
Past the stone wall, there was an even greater garden, with flowers of all shades — from orange tiger lilies to yellow daffodils and daisies tinged with pink and purple. The garden grew as if it were half-wild, half-tamed as if somebody had closed their eyes, hoped for the best, and tossed a packet of the seeds swept up from the floor of a florist shop as if that somebody had gotten their wish.
Light streamed down through a canopy of floral vines woven into trellises that, unlike the ones that held up the marionberries, were horizontal, rather than vertical, and which were in no pattern at all. Some of the trellis wires hung low in curves like curtains, while others were as taut as a tightrope walker’s line. The teeming life made it nearly impossible to see the wires or the wooden beams that supported the magical garden.
“Be careful,” said Rufus.
“Of what?” asked Jennifer. “This place…it’s gorgeous, Rufus. I had no idea plants could grow like this — out here, up here.”
“It’s a shame it has to be torn down,” said Rufus.
“Torn down?” asked Jennifer. “Why on earth would you tear this place down?”
“Wood rot in the beams, rust in the wires,” said Rufus. “Either we tear it down…or it collapses around us.”
“It’s a shame that all these plants are going to have to die,” said Jennifer. “This beautiful world…I think it has as much a right to be here as the two of us.”
“Me too,” said Rufus. “But, I don’t make those decisions.”
“Who does?” asked Jennifer.
“Men like my father — the ‘alumni’ of Hemlock Crew,” explained Rufus. “Here on the ground, Terrence makes the final decisions.” Rufus led Jennifer by the hand through the garden, over mosaic stones that glittered underneath the beams of light that streamed through the garden’s canopy.
There was a dark wooden door with a brass handle. Rufus opened it and led Jennifer inside the building.
“Welcome to the Hemlock Lodge,” said Rufus. Jennifer looked around. The only thing the building had in common with the edifice over at Camp Grizzlyfir was that it was full of big, burly lumberjacks — or at least, men wearing flannel shirts and denim pants. The building had dark wood floors, covered with worn burgundy Oriental rugs, those rugs topped with dark nail head leather chairs that, unlike the ones found at Camp Grizzlyfir, didn’t look like they’d been hauled off Greek Row on trash day.
“Pretty much everyone’s gone — working at the site,” explained Rufus. “Come on. My car’s out this way.”
Rufus and Jennifer walked to the other side of the massive room. He led her out the front door. She turned and looked over the building. Hemlock Crew’s headquarters looked more like a luxury ski lodge than a lumberjack dorm. Jennifer turned back to the parking lot. It was filled with luxury vehicles in one part of the lot, each vehicle allotted a generously sized parking space, with trucks, vans, and SUVs and ATVs in another section.
Rufus pulled his keys out of his pocket and walked toward the fancier cars. Jennifer’s jaw nearly dropped when he clicked a button on his remote and remotely opened the door to an eggplant purple sports car with a cream leather interior.
“This…this is your car?” asked Jennifer. “This probably costs more than my yearly salary.”
“It does,” said Rufus wickedly. “Get in.”
Jennifer got in the car, and as soon as she was buckled in, the car’s door lowered. Rufus put the buckets of berries in the back of the car, got in the car, put the keys in the engine, and put on a pair of sunglasses stashed in the visor.
“Should you really be driving this thing up and down the gravel road?” asked Jennifer.
“Who said we were taking that road?” asked Rufus, starting to drive — stick. Rufus pulled the car out of the lot and took it down a paved road. Jennifer wondered to herself why Jevon hadn’t taken that road — until she saw the sign reading ‘Private Property’ and noticed other such signs were hung up along the side of the road.
The car ride down the mountain was much shorter than her journey up the hill with Jevon. Rufus pulled into the parking lot of Bear Claw Bakery, opened the trunk, and carried the berries into the bakery for Jennifer. The ride down the mountain had been so smooth that not a single berry had bounced out of the buckets, which had not shifted much during the trip.
“Thanks — for the berries and the ride,” said Jennifer. “I shouldn’t’ve stolen them in the first place. I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s for Patricia, right?” asked Rufus, raising an eyebrow. “Right?”
“Yeah — but still,” said Jennifer.
“Trust me — if these are for Patricia, and I’d sent you away, I’m sure Terrence would have my head taxidermized and put in the formal dining room,” said Rufus, before putting a crooked finger underneath Jennifer’s chin. “I’ll see you around, Jennifer — and when I do, I expect you to have a fresh, hot muffin waiting for me.”
Rufus took Jennifer’s hand and put his mouth on the back of her hand, rather than around her finger. Before Jennifer could reply, Rufus left the bakery.
“Jennifer?” called Patricia. “Are you finally back? I was gonna send out a frikkin’ search party!”
“I’m back,” said Jennifer. “Rufus gave me a ride.”
“Don’t you mean Jevon?” asked Patricia.
“Nope,” said Jennifer.
“Then honey, you just brought back more than berries,” said Patricia. “You brought back a bucket full of drama.”
Chapter Five
The hardest part of baking had always been the waiting. At least, that was the hardest thing for Jennifer to do. Luckily, there was a simple solution to that — eating something else while waiting for what’s baking to finish baking, or waiting for it to cool down.
Eating while waiting for something to finish baking was a solution to the agony that was the waiting game. For Jennifer, who was waiting for the muffins to cool so she could assess whether or not the new marionberries had made a frikkin’ difference for the muffins, it was also a solution to something else — stress. She was stress eating the turnover, worried that maybe — and it was a very possible maybe — the muffins were going to come out a bust, again.<
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Jennifer munched on an apple turnover while watching the muffin tin, which was seated on a trivet, and watching the timer next to the muffin tin tick down the seconds. Her eyes moved back and forth between the muffins and the timer, like the ticking hand of a metronome, while she waited for the timer to finish counting down.
Jennifer knew what she’d do if the muffins sucked. She’d just use regular marionberries, and less of them — but that would make them like every other marionberry muffin sold in town. She needed something special. Having the best marionberries, and the most marionberries that could be stuffed into a muffin, had to count for something, didn’t it?
Finally, the timer went off. Jennifer dismissed the timer, finished up her apple turnover, washed her hands, and went back to the tin. Her heart beat faster as she pulled the first muffin out and it seemed to catch — and then, only the top half of the muffin came out. Jennifer was disappointed — it was a bad omen, in her opinion — but she put the top half of the muffin down and started to pull out the second muffin.
The second muffin came out clean — top to bottom, with berries evenly distributed throughout the muffin. At least, it looked like they were evenly distributed. Jennifer would only be able to verify that once she split the muffin in two. She had to pull the rest of the muffins out of the tin first.
Of the dozen muffins, one was soggy, another two muffins split, but the rest came out clean. The failure rate was good for a new recipe and much better than it had been for her previous attempts at making the perfect marionberry muffin.
Once all the muffins were out of the tin, Jennifer started to inspect them. The soggy muffin was an anomaly — probably just happened to get too many chopped berries, so she’d have to start accurately weighing out the berries using a scale, rather than relying on volume of a small measuring scoop.
The split muffins were dry — and that meant that maybe, Jennifer could add a few more bits of berries to each muffin, to add more moisture. Again, that problem could be solved using a food scale, rather than a measuring scoop. The split muffins had probably split from dryness, as the split edges were crumbly, and the bottoms of the muffins were not soggy at all.
Jennifer split open one of the ideal muffins. The berries were perfectly distributed, top to bottom, and all around, inside the muffin. She bit into the muffin. It was flavorful and had a good texture. It tasted more like marionberries and less like generic blackberries. It didn’t taste like anything she’d had at the bakery before. Bear Claw Bakery’s schtick was partially based on the idea that its pastries were made the way one’s grandma would make them, but the standardized recipes and popularity of the bakeries had made the pastries more culturally ubiquitous and less, well, special.
These muffins tasted homemade. They tasted like being at grandma’s house.
They had to win the competition.
Jennifer put the muffins on a plate and knocked on the door to Patricia’s office. Patricia had been filled in about the berry situation and had told Jennifer she’d handle things with Terrence. Patricia opened her door and took in a sharp breath.
“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” said Patricia. “Tell me those muffins are real. Pinch me. I have to be dreaming.”
“How about I don’t pinch you, and you just try a muffin?” asked Jennifer, raising a brow.
Patricia grabbed a muffin and poked it. The muffin was bouncy and cakey. She looked at the top, inspecting it like a jeweler inspecting a diamond’s facets, and nodded approvingly. She took a bite…took her time to chew the muffin and savor its flavors…and looked at Jennifer.
“Jennifer, I’m going to have to fire you…” said Patricia.
Jennifer’s heart stopped.
“…Because I think that once word gets out about these muffins, the shop will get trampled to the ground by customers that need to get their fix,” said Patricia. “These are amazing. The biggest issue is going to be getting enough berries — so we might not be able to offer them for sale, but, we can get enough for the contest — and for you to use to improve the recipe, no offense.”
“None taken,” said Jennifer. “If we have all this time to prepare for the contest, we have to use it.”
“See — I knew we’d get along,” said Patricia.
Somebody dinged the bell at the counter — twice. Jennifer turned. Standing at the counter, in a blue chambray button-down shirt tucked into a clean pair of jeans, held up by a belt with a shiny but plain belt buckle, was a bear. He had burly arms that weren’t holding an ax …but that were holding a mason jar full of daisies, the mason jar wrapped with a pink gingham ribbon tied into a bow.
“Jevon?” asked Jennifer. “Is that you?”
“Last time I checked, that is my name,” said Jevon. “I wanted to check in on you…and bring you back your shoes, Cinderella.” Jevon put the jar of flowers down on the counter and picked up a plastic grocery bag of shoes from the ground.
“I forgot about those,” said Jennifer. “Thanks for coming all this way to deliver them to me.”
“I don’t think he came down here because of the shoes,” said Patricia with a grin. “Although…I was wondering when he’d return them. I was starting to think he’d stolen them.” Jevon chuckled at the joke and turned to face Jennifer.
“My thieving days aren’t over – but this bad bear’s not looking to steal shoes, or berries. I’m looking to steal your heart, Jennifer. I was wondering if…maybe, sometime…you’d like to go on a date with me,” said Jevon. “We’re holding a movie night up at Camp Grizzlyfir tonight — and trust me, Alex makes some amazing popcorn — including caramel kettle corn.”
“I —” started Jennifer. She was going to say she wanted to go because she did want to go…but then she remembered Rufus. Whenever she was around Jevon, she forgot about Rufus, and whenever she was around Rufus, she forgot about Jevon.
Before Jennifer could answer, the door to the bakery jingled. Behind Jevon, in a tailored gray suit, with a black shirt, holding a bouquet of crimson roses, was none other than Rufus.
“You were saying?” asked Jevon.
“I…can’t,” said Jennifer.
“You can’t go on a date with me?” asked Jevon.
“Because she wants to go on a date with me,” said Rufus with a smirk. “That’s why I came down here — and looks like I came down just in time.”
“Okay, two things — one, I can’t date you either, Rufus,” said Jennifer. “Two — the second half of what you said was just dramatic and is illogical.”
“So you’re not going to date me…or him?” asked Jevon, looking at Jennifer before turning to face Rufus before facing Jennifer again.
“No — because I —” started Jennifer.
As Jennifer talked, Rufus moved toward the counter. In doing so, he brushed against Jevon — and an errant rose from the bouquet Rufus was carrying cut Jevon’s forearm.
Before the blood could bubble to the surface, Jevon shoved Rufus back and growled. Rufus tossed his bouquet aside and willingly started to shift, knowing that when a shifter like Jevon made such rumbling noises, only one thing was guaranteed — trouble.
Jennifer couldn’t believe what she was watching. The two men, who had both been focused on wooing her, were now focused on each other, circling each other. Rufus was like a matador in front of a bull, making calculated motions around Jevon.
Then, suddenly, in an instant, Jevon turned — a flurry of fabric whipping away from his body as his bear came out to play.
The two bears shifted and lunged at each other at the same time. It happened so fast that Jennifer couldn’t tell the two bears apart at first.
The bears looked different, but Jennifer couldn’t figure out which bear was which lumberjack until she’d watched them fight for a minute. One bear was darker than the other, so Jennifer decided that bear must be Rufus, as Rufus’s brown hair was darker than Jevon’s.
Jevon’s bear roared as one of Rufus’ paws hit his face. The bear told him to rip Rufus to
shreds. Jevon roared back at his bear — that was already the frikkin’ plan. After all, Rufus had just cockblocked him and attacked him like a coward, scratching his arm.
Rufus’s bear warned Rufus that Jevon was a wild bear, not one who knew how to control his emotions, not like Rufus. Rufus agreed with his bear. However, that cockiness and self-assuredness left Rufus open to an attack from Jevon, who headbutted Rufus in the side.
Jevon kept pushing at Rufus, pushing Rufus into the lightweight wooden chairs and tables near the storefront window. Jevon stood up on his back legs and smashed his claws down on Rufus. Rufus moved, so he had a chair covering his head, but Jevon smashed through the chair like a karate master chopping through cinderblocks.
Rufus rolled out of the rubble and tripped Jevon with his stubby legs, causing Jevon to fall on the wooden table, hard. The table cracked underneath the weight of the large, furry animal.
“Stop that! Stop that this minute!” ordered Jennifer.
“Frikkin’ bears — won’t listen to rhyme or reason, just their bears,” said Patricia with a sigh, walking to the front door and flipping over the ‘Open’ sign to read ‘Closed.’ It was a useless act. To anyone looking into the bakery, it would be obvious that the only thing on the menu was drama.
Jevon turned tail — and that big furry butt and tiny furry tail of his did even more damage, knocking over the displays of pastries in the front window. Little macarons filled with local jam tumbled to the floor. Fluffy croissants, filled with chocolate and almond pastes, flew through the air like tiny pastry parachutes. A tray of bear claws was upturned, and the pastries skidded across the floor. Rufus grabbed a marionberry pie from the display case and used his paws to smush the pie into Jevon’s face!
It would’ve been the kind of hilarious online video Jennifer would’ve shared with friends — if it wasn’t happening at Bear Claw Bakery, and if the fighting bears weren’t the two bear shifters that were as hot as they were hot-headed.
Rufus skidded on a macaron. Jevon’s paw came down — on a bear claw. The bear claw caused the bear’s claws to slip and slide on the floor.
