Page 36 of Caught Bear Handed

Or they’re saving their highest profile client for the perfect moment,my wolf said.

“Has anything weird happened?Like, anything.”I must’ve sounded crazy, showing up in disguise at this huge party and insisting impending doom was coming.But it very well could be.“Especially since you arrived in Sawtooth Forest.”

“Nothing that I can think of,” she said.Her expression was drawn, and I had a feeling she wasn’t telling me the whole truth.“Oh.There was someone at the cupcake shop downtown.I thought they were just an overzealous viewer.They wouldn’t go away.Drew had to step in to make them get the hint.”

That was way too close for comfort.Amelia was far more recognizable than me.As the lead actress, her face was on all the show’s promo materials.She was a seasoned professional when it came to dealing with fan encounters.The fact that her mate had to get rumbly to make them go away…

Even in this heat, a shiver danced down my spine.

“Was there anything unusual about that encounter?”I asked.

“Kayla!”my name boomed from a familiar voice, and I turned to find Beau running toward me, with Barrett, Bellamy, and Brad following close behind.

“Shit,” Amelia said under her breath.

Beau pulled me into his arms and didn’t let me go.His heart thumped a steady rhythm as he held me tight.

“What’s wrong?”I asked.

“We lost the signal,” Bellamy said.“The band is livestreaming, and we think it might have conflicted with our secure network.”

I pulled away from Beau’s body.“You mean we got hacked?”

Bellamy shook his head.“It compromised our bandwidth.We’ve never had to compete with a system of that size before.That’s why you couldn’t understand Barrett.Our cameras had trouble transmitting consistent images, but GPS still worked.We could see you were headed to the parking lot, but we weren’t sure with who.”

Amelia let out a low whistle.“That’s quite the setup.”

“Oh shit, you’re Amelia,” Beau said.“I’m a huge fan of the show.”

“Thanks,” Amelia said, taking it in stride.I loved that even in the middle of our mission, he still gushed over one of his favorite television stars.

“Did Kay—Gina tell you about our current assignment?”Barrett asked.

“She did,” Amelia said slowly, like she was still making sense of an entire security team coming after us.

“She had a weird encounter with a fan in the cupcake shop in Granger Falls,” I added.“That’s how things started with Mark.”

Her eyes widened.“Wait, your creepy ex is part of this too?”

“It was one date.And a lot of creepy stuff.But yes, he’s in on it.I’d just asked Amelia if there was anything weird about her superfan encounter when you guys found us.”

“I don’t think so, besides the fact he wouldn’t take no for an answer.I’d really wanted to tell him to back off, but you know how it is, everyone has a camera in their pocket.If we’re not careful, we’re on the front page of all the gossip sites, and then we get canceled.Drew was much more gracious and convincing than I could be.”She shook her head.“I didn’t realize this was such a big operation.Or maybe my brain refused to acknowledge how serious things were.”

“The operation responsible for the crypto scam was connected to the team who abducted Kayla,” Beau said.“And we have reason to believe that they might try to contact you again if they haven’t already.”

“Oh.”Amelia blinked rapidly, but it did nothing to make her shock fade.“What should I do?”

“We can talk about that after the party,” Barrett suggested.“We’ll want to talk to you more in depth, and if needed, we can offer surveillance for the rest of your stay in Sawtooth Forest, and make a referral for when you go back to set.”

“Yeah, absolutely.I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Amelia said.

“Is it normal to have fans approach you in Sawtooth Forest?”Beau asked.“You’re pack.Seems like it would be different here.”

“You just fanned over her,” I reminded him.

“I’ve only been spending more time here recently, and like Beau suggested, I’m usually with the pack.So no, it’s not a usual occurrence.”

“It’s too close for comfort.”Barrett ran his hand over his beard.“Beau, bring Kayla back to the cabin.We haven’t picked anything suspicious up so far, so I don’t think we did any damage today.But we can’t get cocky and put more shifters at risk.”