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    Bear and Fox: Baking Bears, #1
    Bear and Fox: Baking Bears, #1
    Bear and Fox: Baking Bears, #1
    Ebook119 pages2 hours

    Bear and Fox: Baking Bears, #1

    By Hollis Shiloh

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Dane is a lonely bear shifter who doesn't know if he'll ever find a mate.  Then one day he finds himself defending a fox from a brutal wolf attack.  He's found his mate—and the fox shifter is scared of him.

    Will Dane ever earn the trust of his mate, a shy, handsome, suspicious man who's had little reason to ever trust anyone?  

    Contains a honey-loving bear, a sweet, suspicious fox, gay uncles, a tiny bit of shifter politics, and enough food to shake a stick at.

    Heat level: very low
    ~32,000 words

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

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpare Words Press
    Release dateMay 21, 2016
    ISBN9781524273057
    Bear and Fox: Baking Bears, #1

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      Book preview

      Bear and Fox - Hollis Shiloh

      Table of Contents

      Bear and Fox (Baking Bears, #1)

      Bear and Fox

      The end

      The Baking Bears Series: | Bear and Fox | Bear's Delight | Bread and Books | Sign up to hear about my new releases:

      Story copyright 2015 by Hollis Shiloh. 

      All rights reserved.  Do not reproduce without written permission from the author.  All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental. 

      Cover art by Bree Archer.  Image content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any people depicted in the content are models.  (So are the animals.)

      Proofreading by Monica Pulliam.

      ABOUT THE STORY:

      Dane is a lonely bear shifter who doesn't know if he'll ever find a mate.  Then one day he finds himself defending a fox from a brutal wolf attack.  He's found his mate — and the fox shifter is scared of him.

      Will Dane ever earn the trust of his mate, a shy, handsome, suspicious man who's had little reason to ever trust anyone? 

      Contains a honey-loving bear, a sweet, suspicious fox, gay uncles, a tiny bit of shifter politics, and enough food to shake a stick at.

      Bear and Fox

      by Hollis Shiloh

      There was a large house on a hill, a house with a generous porch and white siding, and lantern-type bulbs with thick glass hanging around the porch, illuminating it in the half-darkness.  A swing, a couple of rocking chairs, and a pair of older men sitting on the porch.

      A large brown bear ambled out of the woods, stood up straight, and scented the air.  He sniffed hard, his sensitive nostrils picking up the smells of salad (lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, onions and carrots), bacon (fried just hard enough to go a little black at the edges, just how he liked it), and slightly stale donuts and honey buns.  His sensitive senses lit up with the odors; he sniffed hard and ambled forward, trying not to drool too hard.

      One of the men on the porch rose; the swing creaked.  Dane, he said.

      Dane let out a chuffing huff that was as close to a laugh as he could come in his bear form.  He went back to all four paws and lumbered over, fast and quietly for such a large creature.  He scented the air again and made a little questioning moan.

      You greedy thing, said the other man, in a slightly camp voice.  He had a big smile on his face.  Yes, we'll feed you.  But you know very well you ought to sit down and have a proper meal with us.  You shouldn't wait so long to visit your uncles, you know!

      The men went into the house and came out with food galore.  They put down the salad still in the bowl, half-eaten, the stale buns and several donuts on a plate, and three crispy pieces of bacon.  It was a lot of food, but barely a snack for a hungry bear.  And Dane was hungry; it was that time of year when his bear side felt like he would go insane from starvation if he couldn't gorge.

      But it was nice to see his uncles, and he respected them too much to behave churlishly.  He licked up the food delicately, for a bear.  And bears could be surprisingly delicate, with their sensitive mouths, eating berries off briars without pricking themselves, sniffing and smelling things far more intensely than humans ever could or would wish to.  True, he was less picky about food in his bear form, but no human could possibly enjoy the culinary intensity of this meal as much as he did.  He grunted softly in pleasure as he finished, licked his muzzle, and looked up. 

      His uncles stood nearby.  When they walked over, they each put a hand on his back, rubbing fingers through his thickening autumnal fur.  He was a big, sturdy bear, not the biggest or sturdiest, but big enough and sturdy enough, and no human should have dared touch him like this unless he was the tamest creature on earth — or else a bear shifter instead of simply a bear.  This was the case; and he had known and adored these men since he was ten years old.

      Are you going to come inside and have a shower?  You reek, said Uncle Ned.  He was a slender, waifish man in his fifties who had large eyes and a surprisingly nice fashion sense.  He was elegant and still pretty and looked youthful when he moved, even though he would never be called a young man again — unless he went to live at an old folks home and everybody called him the kid and sent him to fetch things for them.

      But there was little danger of that any time soon.  He was well entrenched in his life with the other uncle, Carlos.  Carlos was the same age as Ned but looked older, sturdier, steadier, and, if he wasn't smiling, fierce and angry.  It was just how his face was made — a strong, square jaw, a firm gaze — but it frightened people who didn't know him. 

      They had known one another all their lives, and their love had crossed more than one divide, in an area where, when they were young, many disapproved both of Hispanic and Caucasians falling in love, and gay people as well.

      They lived in a pleasant home near the woods.  It was their dream home, and they had made it perfectly delightful.  Ned still worked as a designer, although he took fewer clients now and didn't travel as much.  He had exquisite taste and a gentle, charming way about him that endeared him to those who took the time to get to know him. 

      He had never believed in snark.  He got his feelings hurt easily and tried to hide it.  He was a gentle man, and most people who got to know him even a bit found themselves wanting to protect him, not goad him or envy him.  He was just a sweet guy.

      Carlos was strong: strong emotionally, strong physically, strong intellectually.  He owned his own construction company, built from the ground up.  Though he'd been unable to attend college or even to graduate from high school for financial reasons, he'd furthered his education on his own in the years since, and he was the most independent thinker Dane knew.  Not one to fall for sound bites or let other people think for him, he loved nothing better than chopping a great big pile of wood in the morning and spending the afternoon curled up reading next to his life partner. 

      Carlos read thick, intimidating tomes about any and every topic, mostly non-fiction.  Ned curled up elegantly beside him and chewed the end of his hair, or his fingernails — a habit he'd never been able to break himself of since he'd stopped smoking at seventeen — and read trashy and battered paperbacks, or smutty stories on his well-loved e-reader.

      Dane loved them both dearly, but he shook his head now to his uncle's entreaty.  He wasn't ready to go back to being human and face everything.

      Ned sighed and dug his sensitive fingers deeper into the thick fur.  All right.  Why don't you come indoors and sleep in front of the fire?  Or will you be too warm?

      Dane shook his head gently from side to side.  He liked sleeping inside.  It would also likely mean more treats, and he was very greedy in his bear form.  Food comforted him a great deal, but it comforted a bear even more than a man.

      Darling, why don't you get the door for our boy? Ned said, looking at Carlos sweetly. 

      Carlos gave him a little lip-twitching smile.  "I'd hardly say little."

      I didn't say little.  I very carefully didn't say 'little.' 

      They made it to the house, bantering gently, as was their way.  Dane trundled inside and moved to the living room where the friendly wooden floor was open enough to give a bear plenty of room.  He flopped down in the middle and sighed happily, closing his eyes.

      I'll bring you something more to eat, promised Ned, giving him a gentle pat.

      As soon as he was gone, swishing away in his silky clothing, Carlos knelt by Dane.  In his bear form, he could hear the slight creak in his uncle's knees.  Carlos's hand rested on his neck.  "You all right, Chico?"

      Dane opened one eye and looked up at his uncle.  He could admit it now.  He shook his head, ever so slightly.

      No.  He wasn't all right, and it didn't appear likely he was going to be in the near future.

      Bears didn't mate for life — not in nature, not the ones who were shifters.  They just didn't.  And there weren't many gay bears, either.  It seemed to be genetically less likely for a gay bear-shifter to be born than a straight bear-shifter — at least from everything he'd ever seen, smelled, or heard.  And there were far fewer bear shifters to begin with, so he had an even smaller dating pool.

      Of course, there were always humans, but could he find the life partner he craved so much and keep such a huge part of his life hidden?  The alternative was being alone the rest of his life or finding someone he could trust with every part of himself —

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