Page 35 of Caught Bear Handed

Using all the new girl on the first day of school energy I could muster, I approached the ladies.My heart pounded, but my wolf assured me my nerves were unfounded.Amelia was my friend, my colleague.But in this disguise, she wouldn’t recognize me, I had only a few seconds to gain her trust.

“Hi, I’m Gina,” I said, forgoing the fake drawl, knowing that Amelia would recognize it.“I’m here with Beau from Sawtooth Security, but he got pulled away on business.Can I hang out with you?”

“Of course.”The lady with the blue hair slid away from Amelia, giving me a place to sit in between them.Thank the moon she zigged instead of zagged and gave me the seat of honor.“I’m Luna, and this is?—”

I was pretty sure she introduced her pregnant friend as Lyssie, but I couldn’t be sure because the band had launched into a new song.

“It’s so nice to meet all of you.”I flashed Amelia a smile, not missing the look of confusion on her face.Good.“I’ve heard such wonderful things about the pack, but I can’t lie, I feel like I jumped from the frying pan straight into the fire.”

“You did the right thing,” Luna said loudly so I could hear her over the wail of the guitar.“No one stays a stranger in Sawtooth Forest for long.It’s too small, and this pack is too nosy.”

I laughed along with her, but a new wave of doubt rolled through me with her statement.These wolves would want to know more about Gina, Beau’s new lady, than she was a teacher from South Carolina.

Awkward silence followed, as the band had made conversation difficult even before there was a stranger nestled into the mix.

It wasn’t a perfect time to execute the most important part of my plan, but it was what the universe had given me, and I’d make it work.I turned to Amelia.

“It’s Kayla,” I whispered.

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Beau is working for me,” I continued, hoping that Luna and Lyssie were too immersed in barbeque and the band to decipher my whispers.“I need to talk to you.”

Her lips parted, like she was about to object.

“About my last day on set,” I added before she had a chance to protest.“When Jimmy got hurt.”

Her eyes lit up.No one outsideThe Wolf’s Moonfamily would know about Jimmy.

“Are you okay?”she asked.“I’ve been so worried about you.”

I nodded.“I’m safe now, but we need to talk.”

“Sure.”

“Alone.”

Amelia hesitated, then looked past me to her friends.“I’ll be right back.”

The ladies shared a puzzled look, but we didn’t wait for their full reaction before we rose from the bench.The crowd seemed to have swelled in just the few moments since I’d separated from Beau.There was more frenzied static in my ears, but I still couldn’t understand anything the Sawtooth Security team was saying.

I led Amelia away from the crowd, toward the parking lot.It seemed like the safest, quietest place.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”Amelia asked once we stopped.“Everyone was freaking out when they found Jimmy unconscious, and even more so when we realized you’d gone off without them.What happened?We were told you were safe, but then that night I got a call that the show was on hiatus until further notice.When no one could get in touch with you, we started to panic.”

“Sorry about that.I couldn’t reach out to anyone, and I had no idea what production would do.”I felt bad that I’d been tucked safely into my cabin with my sweet, sexy bear while everyone had been worried about me.“My manager urged me to reach out to Sawtooth Security, and they’ve been taking care of the issue—and me—ever since.”

“Is that all this is?”She motioned to my wig and outfit.I’d chosen a brightly colored halter and shorts way shorter than I was comfortable with.

“I had to be in disguise in case the guys from the crypto scheme had figured out I was here.”

Her mouth dropped.“The crypto guys?That’s what this is about?”

I nodded.“Have you heard from them after everything went bust?”

She took a moment before she said, “Once.They reached out and said that the original investment had been reimagined, I think was the word they used.That they couldn’t do anything about the first, lost investment, but they could give me an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of whatever they’d cooked up next.I didn’t answer.”

Interesting, because Sawtooth Security’s intel had theorized I was the only one who hadn’t given in.