by Sable Sylvan
“I’d love to hear what you think of them,” said Pepper.
Each member of the family took a bite and popped it in their mouth.
“Mommy — this is really good!” said the little girl.
“Mama, I love this,” said the older girl.
“Mommy, Mama, I really, really like this — I like it a lot!” said the middle boy.
“It’s tasty,” said one of the moms.
“It tastes fancy too,” said the other mom. “Can we get three of these pies?”
“Well, actually…we’re still testing the recipe,” said Pepper sheepishly.
“I don’t think the recipe needs any testing — they’re perfect as they are,” said one of the moms.
“Absolutely — but we’ll pick something else,” said the other mom. “You know, it’s real nice of you to offer these samples. The kids were begging to come by.”
“Ah — they’re already fans of the bakery?” asked Pepper.
“No — they’ve heard about the ghost you have in the pumpkin patch!” said the mom. “It’s going all around the school-yard — and the other moms have told me that they’ve heard their older ones talking about the ghost too!”
“Trust me — there’s no ghost,” said Pepper.
“Mmhmm,” said the other mom, raising a brow. “Sounds like the thing a haunted bakery worker would say.”
Pepper rang up their order and watched as the family went out toward the pumpkin patch to look around, peering through the locked gate. Pepper frowned. Something was missing from the patch. Well, there were two somethings — two bears.
Pepper heard the oven ding. She went and pulled the pies out of the oven. They smelled heavenly, like brown sugar and baked squash and gingerbread and vanilla all wrapped in a pie dish.
Then, Pepper heard another ding. She put the pies down and walked out to the front counter as she took off her oven mitts.
At the counter, there was a very familiar face — one Grizzlyfir lumberjack.
“Hey, Oliver,” said Pepper. “Aren’t you a little late?”
“I’m early — for Halloween,” joked Oliver, holding up a treat pail. Pepper couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the big, buff lumberjack holding a tiny orange pumpkin pail.
“You rang my bell. Now, what’s your line?” asked Pepper, putting a hand to her hip.
“Trick or treat,” said Oliver.
“I choose…treat,” said Pepper. “Give me two seconds, and I’ll be right out with a slice of hot pie.”
Pepper went to the back of the bakery, but there was someone by her work station — a man wearing a pair of fake plastic fangs and a black and red nylon cape.
“Hey,” said the man huskily.
“You know — I was never one of those gals that were into vampires,” said Pepper.
“Sure you weren’t,” said Peter. “Good thing I’m not a vampire. I’m here as a trick-or-treater.” Peter held up a pail shaped like a bat.
“Not you too,” groaned Pepper.
“Me…too?” asked Peter, confused. “Uh…trick or treat?”
“Trick,” said Pepper. “Here’s my trick — I’m giving you a slice of pie, and then, kicking you out of the baking area!”
“You don’t need to wear a pair of fake cat ears to act so feisty, do you?” asked Peter. “Rawr — kitty’s got claws.”
“I’m certainly no pussy,” quipped Pepper, carrying two slices of pie. “Come on.”
Pepper led Peter out the front of the bakery, where Oliver was still waiting.
“What’re you doing here?” growled Oliver.
“Just here for work,” insisted Peter. “What’re you doing with that pail?”
“I could ask you the same question,” said Oliver in a deep voice, following Pepper to a table.
“I thought you two would enjoy sharing some pie,” said Pepper, putting the plates down. “Eat up. We have a long day ahead of us.”
“I’m not the kind of man that shares his pie,” said Oliver.
“At least we have that in common,” growled Peter. “If I were willing to share Pepper’s pie, it wouldn’t be with a Grizzlyfir.”
“Says the Hemlock kid who needs a babysitter, even though we’re the same age,” said Oliver. “Real tough guy. Real big man.”
Peter pushed his chair back as he rose. “I’m more man than you’ll ever be, and more bear than you’ll ever feel.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Oliver, standing quickly. “Why don’t you prove it?”
“Peter — Oliver — ” started Pepper, but Peter pushed Oliver back.
“What? You want to see my darkness come out and play?” roared Peter.
“If you see your shift as a darkness, you’re not a shifter,” said Oliver.
“And if you see it as anything but a dark force to control, you’re a fool,” roared Peter, and ironically, that was the moment he lost control of his own dark force, his own shift.
Pepper watched in awe as Peter shifted into a big, dark-furred being that seemed to be all gnashing teeth and swiping claws. Somehow, the beast seemed familiar. Before Pepper could place where she’d seen that beast before, she heard a ripping sound. She turned. Oliver’s arms were bulging as fur covered his body. His flannel shirt was ripping at the seams.
Oliver shifted quickly. His own bear was a lighter brown than Peter’s, the shade of unripe chestnuts, nestled in burrs which were just blonding underneath the autumn light.
Oliver pushed Peter back, away from the table, away from Pepper. Peter hadn’t lunged toward Pepper, but, Oliver wasn’t about to take any chances. Oliver’s bear roared and encouraged him to protect his mate. Oliver’s bear shouted in Peter’s face as it pushed it back.
Peter’s beast barrelled backward on the deck and Pepper heard a sickening crack. At first, she thought it was the sound of bones breaking, but then, she saw that the deck’s wooden railing had cracked in one place underneath Peter’s weight.
“Great, just great,” said Pepper, crossing her arms. “You two should stop now before you break anything — ”
Before Pepper could say the word ‘else,’ that’s just what the bears broke — something else. Oliver pushed Peter back, hard, and Peter’s body splintered the railing. Pepper backed up, worried that the bears would tear the floor of the deck open. Peter was on the ground, facing up toward Oliver. Oliver got on his hind legs, roared, and then, like a pro wrestler, tried to jump down on Peter.
But, Peter’s bear wasn’t stupid. It took control, and Peter took the backseat while his bear’s instincts kicked in. Peter rolled away like a frikkin’ ninja, and when Peter’s feet were back underneath his body rather than in the air, Peter turned the somersault into a set of bounding leaps that took him over the chicken wire fence that surrounded the pumpkin patch.
Oliver took chase, like a cat after a mouse, but that was just what Peter’s bear wanted. Peter’s bear ran faster. He listened as he heard the plodding footprints of Oliver’s feet running through the pumpkin patch. Oliver’s flat bear paws hit the hard ground and trampled some crinkled, fallen leaves that had danced their way over to the pumpkin patch on errant winds. Peter’s bear used his heartbeat to track the rhythm of Oliver’s running, and when Oliver was running fast enough, Peter kept the pace. Peter’s bear spotted its goal and bounded toward it, and at the last minute, Peter’s bear changed direction.
Oliver had been chasing Peter. Peter’s huge body had blocked him from seeing the obstacle — which happened to be the booth that was under construction! Oliver’s bear was bigger than Peter’s, as Oliver was more prepared for the coming winter, due to a steady diet of salmon and marionberries — and burgers, corn dogs, chips, and pumpkin pie. But, that meant that it couldn’t avoid knocking into the booth, because its hefty weight was already moving forward by the time the bear wanted to move away from the booth.
Oliver crashed into the booth and the wood planks splintered underneath his heft.
“Are you frikkin’ serious!” Pepper ca
lled from the deck. She got off the dock and walked down to the pumpkin patch. Before she could get to the booth, Oliver was bounding off toward Peter.
Pepper turned her attention from the broken booth to Oliver and Peter. They were running around like very poorly trained dogs at a dog park. Well, the problem was, they were a lot bigger than dogs, and they weren’t in a frikkin’ dog park — they were in her pumpkin patch!
As Oliver leaped on Peter, Pepper heard a crack and a squish — and then another, and another.
“Oh, uh-uh,” Pepper whispered. “No. No way. No.”
She walked over toward Oliver and Peter, careful not to slip in the muddy pumpkin patch. Oliver and Peter were doing just what she’d frikkin’ expected. They were wrestling — right in a pile of the pumpkins.
The two bears had picked precisely the perfect patch of plump pumpkins Pepper was planning to pick to prime for pumpkin pies. The orange squash had been squashed.
“Stop it!” called Pepper, and Oliver and Peter both ignored her. “I said stop! Stop this instance!”
Peter and Oliver were too focused on their wrestling match to pay Pepper any mind. To be fair, their ears may’ve been full of mud and pumpkin seeds.
Pepper looked around for a hose. She knew that when dogs were fighting, a good hosing down could break things up safely. She wasn’t about to get in the middle of two brawling bears. She didn’t have a death wish.
There wasn’t a hose. But, there was something else she could use to break up the fight.
“Sometimes, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet…and I guess sometimes, you gotta break a pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie,” said Pepper, shaking her head. She picked a medium-sized pumpkin and lifted it up. She could’ve picked a larger pumpkin, as she was a surprisingly strong woman. After all, she came out to pick pumpkins for her pies on a pretty regular basis. But, she chose a medium sized pumpkin so she could do what she had to do.
To save the other pumpkins, she had to sacrifice one for the good of the patch.
“Ugh!” Pepper grunted, tossing the pumpkin toward the bears.
She missed.
The pumpkin actually hit three other pumpkins and broke them.
“Frik,” cursed Pepper. She picked another pumpkin, walked closer to the bears, as close as she felt was safe, and dropped the pumpkin right on their heads before immediately taking three steps back.
Pepper was a safe distance away by the time she heard the pumpkin crack over the bear’s heads. The pumpkin had hit both the bears in the head. The calabaza had hit both the bears in the cabeza.
The pumpkin split in two. The two brawling bears ended up pushing the pumpkin, so the two halves were like hats on their furry heads.
The two bears looked at each other and then at Pepper. Pepper’s face was bright red. She had her hands on her hips. She looked scarier than anything they might’ve run into in the woods.
“Stop!” ordered Pepper, huffing and puffing harder than the Big Bad Wolf. “You two…frikkin’…animals!”
Oliver and Peter shifted back into their human forms. They were covered with orange pumpkin guts, the stringy squash and the slick beige seeds sticking to their bodies like geckos to a tree branch.
“I have tried to keep things calm between you two, and you’ve insisted on stirring up fights over bullshizz,” shouted Pepper. “You two can’t even eat slices of pie without trying to rip each other apart!”
“You’re my mate,” said Oliver.
“Both of you, stand up, now,” ordered Pepper.
“But we’re — ” started Peter.
“What? You don’t think I’ve seen a twig and berries before?” asked Pepper. “I said stand up!
Oliver and Peter scrambled to stand up. Pepper looked over the guys. They were covered head to toe with pumpkin carnage. It looked like they’d murdered a whole family of butternut squashes.
But, even through the stringy slimy bits of squash, Pepper could tell that her suspicions had been confirmed. These two guys were fighting over nothing. She saw the outlines on both their chests — Peter’s outline she’d seen before, and the one she’d suspected was on Oliver’s body.
“Alright, next to each other,” ordered Pepper.
“Why?” asked Peter.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be asking questions,” said Pepper. “Stand next to each other!”
Peter moved next to Oliver. Pepper went up to both them, put her hands on their chests. Their chests were warm, firm, hot, and sticky. They hid a secret, a secret written to them by Fate, available for all to see, as it was placed on their chests. Pepper resisted licking the pecs clean and squeegeed them using her hands.
“Just as I thought,” said Pepper. “Look.”
Oliver looked down at his chest. Peter looked at his own chest.
“At each other,” ordered Pepper.
Oliver turned and saw what was on Peter’s chest.
“No,” whispered Oliver.
“What? Never seen a huge — cock,” cursed Peter, turning and seeing Oliver’s chest. “No. There’s no way.”
On Oliver and Peter’s chest, there was the same design — a pumpkin, stamped right on their chests by fate. They looked at the other’s marks, at Pepper, around the patch, back at Pepper, and back down at their own marks.
“You two have the same mark,” said Pepper. “Now, I’m no shifter — although as you’ve seen, I am capable of losing my shift. What I am is someone who can see what’s right in front of me. You two have been fighting the whole dang time instead of working together.”
“Working together to what?” asked Oliver.
“Are…you frikkin’…no,” said Pepper, rubbing her temples. “Alright. Look. I am gonna leave and go back to the bakery and calm down for ten minutes. After I leave, shift into your bears, go back to your camps, get changed, and get back to work. We have a pumpkin patch to put together, and I’m not about to let your ménage drama ruin my pumpkin patch — you got it?”
“Got it,” said Peter with a gulp, and with a huff, Pepper turned tail and walked away
Pepper’s cheeks were burning. She couldn’t believe she’d done what she’d just done. She could have a hard time doing things like finalizing a recipe, but when she was pushed to her limits, she pointed things out and got shizz done. There was something else Pepper wanted to say to the bears, but she’d forgotten what it was. It probably didn’t matter.
But the question was, what shizz had she gotten done? She had guessed that Oliver and Peter were meant to be in a ménage once she’d seen Oliver’s mark as he shifted. But…the question was, was Pepper right? Oliver and Peter had a curvy baker, but could they keep her?
The two bears plodded up into the woods. One bear, a lighter toned bear, got down and rolled around in the dirt.
“Gross,” growled the other darker bear aloud, speaking bear. He watched as the bear’s orange streaks became dusty brown. The bear had looked like an odd tiger, with orange stripes on a brown coat, but now, the bear looked like a mangy dog.
“You wanna be sticky? Be sticky,” said the light bear, shaking himself off, the strings of dusty pumpkin flung from his fur to the ground and shrubbery and trees around them. “You do you, Peter. I’ll do me.”
“Well, Oliver, if I did me, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” said Peter. “We have to figure this out.
“She’s mine,” said Oliver, getting on his back two legs before roaring at Peter. Peter did not flinch. Peter wasn’t provoked by Oliver’s notoriously bad bear breath.
“She’s ours,” said Peter. “Funny — you’re the one that’s supposed to be teaching me, but I’m the one teaching you.”
“Yeah — it’s a real made-for-TV bromance,” groaned Oliver.
“You heard her say it — ménage,” said Peter, stopping in his bear tracks, looking over Oliver. “Even if one of us agreed to give up and let the other ‘have’ her…you know that Pepper wouldn’t allow it, and neither would Fate. We both ha
ve to be there to make it happen. To claim her.” Peter watched as the furry bear’s face scrunched up and he shook his head. Peter couldn’t help but smile. He was right. He couldn’t have Pepper all to himself, he couldn’t keep Oliver away, but at least he had the satisfaction of knowing he was right. He was the one being the bigger man — the bigger bear.
Oliver took in a deep breath that filled his lungs, deep underneath his furry coat, beneath the layers of fat he was curating for his winter hibernation. “And how exactly do you suggest we get to the stage where we even have her underneath our rock hard bodies, ready to be claimed?” asked Oliver.
“Simple,” said Peter, winking one furry eyelid at Oliver, eclipsing his emerald orbs that shone with the light of the forest. “Sex happens on a third date. So, we need to take her on a first date.”
Chapter Seven
Pepper didn’t talk much to Peter and Oliver the day after their big fight. She did her rounds of the pumpkin patch, worked on her recipe, and surveyed their progress on putting together the pumpkin patch’s booth, decks, and tables. She hated to admit it, but, the project was coming along.
Of course, Pepper wanted the project to be a success.
What she didn’t want was for Peter and Oliver to suddenly start working together just because they’d gotten their aggression out via a bear brawl. They couldn’t’ve worked things out with their words? They had to resort to using their shifts?
Pepper packed her things up at the end of the day. She stashed her work tote in the car and grabbed a plain denim crossbody bag. She was wearing her standard outfit of jeans, long-sleeved shirts, a warm sweater, and a warm vest, with a pair of boots that were perfect for stomping ‘round the pumpkin patch. She headed over to the pumpkin patch, where Peter and Oliver were waiting for her. They’d already packed up their tools and locked the gate to the patch.
“Hmmph,” grunted Pepper with a frown. “Let’s go.”
“I have never seen someone less happy to go on a date,” said Peter, shaking his head. “You feeling sick?”
“No — I’m just hangry,” said Pepper. “Now, are we going on this stupid date or what? I hope you two picked something good. You owe it to me after what happened yesterday. At least you two finished the booth and deck today without killing each other…but, dang it, I’m still mad!”
