Bread and Books: Baking Bears, #3

By Hollis Shiloh

To Matthew, Jake is a mild-mannered mystery. He bought a failing bookstore, but he doesn't know how to run a bookstore at all. And by the number of books he's giving away, the man has to be an optimistic idiot. A business can't survive by giving things away! 

Still, neighboring bakery owner (and secret bear shifter) Matthew can't help being drawn to him and finding excuses to talk to him. The man calls to him in a way no one else does: with his pheromones, his sweet smiles, and his cinnamon-colored eyes. He makes Matthew want things desperately... 

The two men grow closer, and friendship turns to something more. They might even have a chance at forever, if they can bear to share their secrets with one another... 


Heat level: very low 
~39,000 words 

The Baking Bears series: sweet stories focus on bear shifters finding their forever mates in this gentle series of standalone shifter romances. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spare Words Press
• Release date: May 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524226923

Book preview

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ABOUT THE STORY:

To Matthew, Jake is a mild-mannered mystery.  He bought a failing bookstore, but he doesn't know how to run a bookstore at all.  And by the number of books he's giving away, the man has to be an optimistic idiot.  A business can't survive by giving things away!

Still, neighboring bakery owner (and secret bear shifter) Matthew can't help being drawn to him and finding excuses to talk to him.  The man calls to him in a way no one else does: with his pheromones, his sweet smiles, and his cinnamon-colored eyes.  He makes Matthew want things desperately...

The two men grow closer, and friendship turns to something more.  They might even have a chance at forever, if they can bear to share their secrets with one another...

A Baking Bears story - standalone sweet gay romance

approx. 39,000 words

The Baking Bears series: sweet stories focus on bear shifters finding their forever mates in this gentle series of standalone shifter romances.

Bread and Books

(a baking bears novel)

by Hollis Shiloh

THERE SEEMED TO BE a lot of traffic next door.  Matthew hadn't paid much attention to the proposed sale of the aging bookstore, and he hadn't paid much attention when the For Sale sign went down. 

Everybody knew bookstores were failing by the boatload; it was old news.  He expected the new owners would dust the display in the front window, maybe rearrange things, and then quietly run their business for a few more months before putting the For Sale sign up again.

It was the second time the store had sold within five years.  If he felt like being fair about it, he could think it was a bad location or poor management, but he'd decided it was probably just that nobody went to bookstores anymore.  They still flocked to his bakery, so it wasn't entirely the location's fault.  But then again, he sold something people wanted and couldn't get elsewhere: the best cinnamon rolls in the city.  He'd won awards and everything.

For all that he was a successful businessman, Matthew liked his privacy.  He rarely felt the need to get out there and meet the neighbors.  He had quite enough to do, thank you very much.  But the busyness of the new bookstore confounded him.  

Had the new owners actually found a way to make it work?  As cynical as he was on the subject, he couldn't help begrudgingly hoping they would.  When he'd first found this location, part of the reason he'd thought it would be perfect was because of the small bookstore next door.  Which had gone out of business three months later, then sat dormant for a long time till the next person had ponied up the cash to give it a go — and failed after eighteen months.

So he wasn't hopeful about the success of this go-round.  But he couldn't help wanting to be.  What could be better than having a bookstore and a bakery next to each other?  If they sold coffee and had places to sit, it would be even better, since he couldn't provide enough tables for his voluminous clientele.  Not that he thought the store was big enough to do that, or had the desire to.

All the traffic today brought new people into the bakery to exclaim over the delights inside.  He sold extra buns and a lot of brown bread as well as some donuts and cupcakes.  It was nice to be busy — but he grew curiouser and curiouser about the store next door that was actually drawing new customers to the area.

He almost couldn't wait for closing time, so he could go over and check it out.

Finally, he flipped the sign and did a brisk cleanup.  He liked to leave the place clean for morning.  He started work at three in the morning, so it wasn't even light out yet, and facing a dirty kitchen would be annoying at any hour, but especially that one.  He liked clean spaces and quiet to work. 

Everything needed to be done before opening time, since he ran the store by himself.  He hadn't yet found someone he trusted to run the register, although to be honest, he hadn't really looked.  He'd always liked the idea of running a one-man business, so there was nobody but himself to blame if something went wrong — and nobody but himself to trust. 

Getting along with customers was one thing, but getting along with an employee?  Not really his thing.  He hoped he wouldn't have to resort to that, although it did get annoying when customers wanted to chat, instead of get in and get out after paying for their purchases.

Fortunately, he was busy enough that most people knew better than to hold up the line.  They'd ask for their buns or bread or rolls or cupcakes, he'd taciturnly tell them the total, they'd pay up and move along.  He had two small tables inside for people to sit and eat, but the area was small and cramped because the store was, and on nice days he put out garden furniture (small tables and some plastic chairs) in front of the store, but it wasn't really a sit-down-and-eat kind of place.  It was a hole in the wall bakery where you went because the food was so good it had won awards — you didn't go for the atmosphere.

After he had finally flipped the sign in the window to CLOSED, finished the cleanup, and washed up, he hesitated before grabbing his leather jacket and leaving the store.  There was a tray of buns left, and he might as well take them along.  If he met the owner, it would be only polite to give him a welcome to the neighborhood gift.  

If he didn't meet the owner, well, he could take the buns home with him.  Matthew never got tired of his own baking.  Nor did he ever gain any weight from eating as much of it as he did.  It was one of the gifts and curses of being who he was — and one of the reasons he'd gone into the field of baking.  Matthew had his own reasons for being obsessed with food — and needing a big supply of it around him at all times.

He was a bear shifter living in the modern world, secretly and hungrily.  As a bear, he got very, very grumpy if he didn't get enough to eat — and it took more to keep a bear shifter going than a normal human.  Unless he ate a lot of food, he became unbearable to be around.  Sometimes, even with plenty to eat, he was grouchy.  He did not have the world's friendliest personality.

At any rate, his love of food and strong senses of smell and taste helped him in baking.  He was always interested in the process and attuned to the flavors.  And as a baker, he always had plenty of food to eat.  He tried to eat a balanced diet at home, but at work, it was reassuring to know there were always bread products or sweet treats to eat if he got hungry.  It also reassured his inner bear to know there was so much food around and he would never have to run out.

He'd grown up poor, with parents who struggled to take care of their children, and he hated the memories of being so hungry he wanted to cry.  If he sometimes ate a lot because of that, well, he still needed the calories.  And he tried not to be too greedy — to just hoard food.  If he had extra, he'd drop some off at the local women's shelter or the economy store, where people bought used clothes and furniture and could pick up aging baked goods for free.  

The store was connected with a local shelter, and they were given donations from lots of local stores, so he wasn't the only one to supply baked goods.  They served a lot of poorer families, but out of kindness and a sense of respect, didn't require anyone to ask for the bread or prove they needed it.  If you were a customer of the shop, you were welcome to take up to two items home with you each time you stopped by and bought something, no matter how little.  Matthew liked that, and though he valued his regulars a lot, he also thought of those people sometimes when he baked.  It was more than enough motivation to make sure he always made plenty — for his customers, himself, and the other people who might be hungry.

Now he was glad enough to grab some of his leftovers to take to the new neighbor.  He locked up quickly and headed next door.  Whatever was happening there was still going strong.  

He had to wait for two smiling teenage girls to leave the store, both clutching books close.  They looked happy and enthusiastic, at odds with their dark clothing and fierce makeup, he thought.  But then, what did he know of teenagers?  He'd never understood anything about them even when he was one.  He was more concerned with surviving.  

Getting a job at a local bakery, helping out part-time, had taught him so much, and had been his major focus at that age.  Besides which, he'd never particularly been interested in girls.  Boys had been what occupied his obsessive interest and curiosity.  And he hadn't understood much about them, either.

Inside, the store was fairly well-lit in a friendly sort of way.  The walls were crowded with books, and people were browsing in noisy clusters.  No one particular person was being loud, but the variety and number of people inside, most of them talking to themselves or one another, raised the noise level a lot.

It was a typical, old, cramped brick building, divided into narrow places of business.  The building housed a couple of paperwork-related businesses, an accountant and a cheap attorney, even a private investigator who appeared to never be in his or her office.  (The initials on the door of A. B. Investigates weren't conclusive, and Matthew had never seen the person in question.)

The bookstore seemed to hold an atypical clientele.  He looked around with interest, feeling confused.  There were a lot of young people, a lot of older people, and some families with kids.  Everybody seemed to be looking at books or carrying books around, and most of them were talking louder than you normally found in a bookstore or library.  

Wondering in bewilderment if this was how it was supposed to go, Matthew looked around for the owner or someone in charge.  At least there had to be someone near the cash register, right?

The checkout had been moved slightly since he was last inside the shop, before the last owners had failed and sold up.  The man behind it had a cheerful, slightly frowsy appearance and was smiling and talking to the man he was checking out.

Matthew's steps faltered for an instant.  The sight of the stranger gave him pause, although he wasn't at first sure why.  The man was smiling and looked genial, and he had a kind face and rather messy hair that looked as if it either went astray a lot or else he had forgotten to comb it this morning.  He was wearing old-fashioned-looking clothes, as if he wanted to look like a bookstore owner from a previous era.  The suit looked warm — a sort of brown, tweed-like suit,