A Fox in the Orchard

By Layne Baker

A shifter on the run and a lonely apple farmer ... Two wounded women opening their hearts to love again.

Fox shifter Cade knows settling down is dangerous. She can't risk being caught and sent back to the life she escaped from--until she lands on the doorstep of a beautiful, kind woman, and discovers some things are worth staying for.

Angela is used to working alone. She does all the growing, harvesting, baking, and marketing to make her business a smashing success. But beautiful, wild Cade makes her begin to realize that alone is just another word for lonely.

But when Cade's dark past pursues her to Angela's farm, everything they've worked to build may come crashing down around them ...

A Fox in the Orchard is a short and sweet lesbian romance, originally published in the charity anthology Her Wild Soulmate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kalikoi
• Release date: Jun 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201404093

Book preview

Cade

Cade ran. Her fox paws sent snow spraying out behind her in a white shower with every footfall.

Small and nimble, she leapt and darted through the undergrowth. The light of the moon filtered through the bare branches and dead leaves. It was late at night, so late you could almost call it early morning. Most of the world, both human and animal, was still asleep.

What noises she made on this dark, cold night were drowned out by her pursuer—a big, bad wolf.

Well, she didn’t know exactly how bad he really was—she just didn’t want to become his dinner. Hence Cade dashing through the snow only a few days before Christmas in search of a safe place to stay.

She probably could have made herself a den in the woods she was running through, but she’d made the unlucky mistake of trying to nick some of the prey felled by a small, local wolf pack. Hunger could make you do some very stupid things, like think you could catch sleeping wolves unawares and make off with some of their dinner under their noses. All the wolves save one stayed behind to guard their food source—just the one was sent to chase her off.

Cade’s senses told her she was almost out of the woods, both metaphorically and literally. Human smells lay up ahead—the smoke of fires, the gasoline of cars.

An ordinary fox would have steered clear, just like any wild animal, wary of the human world and its dangers. Except racoons, who were born without fear. But Cade wasn’t an ordinary fox, and even though she’d spent long stretches of time as a fox, she still had a human mind, and her human mind told her there was warmth, shelter, and a steady supply of food in the human world. Also, baths.

She burst into the clearing. The sounds of the wolf faded behind her, just as she knew they would.

Gone were the wild array of trees and underbrush of the forest. There were trees here, but in an unnatural arrangement, laid out in orderly rows, and no bushes to hide comfortably under. Cade’s fox hated the sense of exposure, fearing hawks and other predators from the sky.

But Cade could sense the cabin on the other side of the trees: her target for the night. Watchfully, she darted from tree trunk to tree trunk, gleaning as much cover as she could from the branches above. An orchard, she guessed; it smelled like apples, and there were still some hanging on the trees.

The wolf didn’t follow her into the orchard, but it let out a low, threatening growl before stalking away. A warning for Cade to dissuade her from returning to its territory lest she incur the wrath of the wolf pack.

That was fine. Cade always looked ahead to where she was going next, and never back at where she came from. After a night or two here, she would be off to the next rest stop.

The human cabin was small, but it had a covered porch. Old-fashioned, almost quaint. Cade trotted up the wooden stairs.

This human smells good, observed her fox.

It was true. The cabin was covered in the smell of whoever lived here, a woman who smelled like apples and cinnamon and every warm spice that brought to mind the holiday season. More than that, Cade had the sense she would be safe here, for as long as she stayed.

Smells like a good home, said her fox.

Cade knew her fox was only thinking of having her own den, but the mention of home made her think of her family. She hadn’t seen them in three years, but it still hurt to think of what they’d done to her.

This isn’t home, Cade returned sharply, pulling herself to the present. She didn’t have a home anymore. It wasn’t any good to think of any place as home, no matter how much she wanted a home of her own. Everything was temporary, including this place.

There was a wood pile to one side of the porch. Cade curled up between the firewood and the cabin’s outer wall. Between the heat generated by the cabin and the protection of her own fur, it was quite cozy here. She could catch a few hours of sleep, scrounge for some food when she woke, and be off.

Or we could stay longer, her fox suggested.

Cade brushed the idea away, but she sank into sleep faster than she thought she would, surrounded by the smell of apple pie.

Angela

A storm was coming. Angela squinted out the window, skeptical of the clear skies, but the weather app said what it said: incoming snowstorm on Christmas Eve, maybe a foot or more, get your shovels