We are one week away from the release of Goose!
I am so excited for you guys to read this book! Want to check things out before you buy? Check out the first chapter of Goose below! Warning: this chapter will contain spoilers if you have not yet read Angel.
I wasn’t the kind of person to make a habit out of stalking someone. In fact, I couldn’t care less about most people’s movements. That wasn’t my job, so I didn’t make it a point to try and log every action of every person I came into contact with.
However, as I stood outside of Harley’s bedroom door, I couldn’t stop listening to her whistle.
Why the hell was someone whistling in her kind of position?
“Goose!”
I lifted my head and watched as Fangs jogged toward me.
“Goose, there you are,” he said as he stopped in front of me, “you got a second?”
I tilted my head. “What’s up?”
He held the clubhouse phone out for me. “It’s Angel. He says he’s been trying to call you for the past hour and you haven’t picked up.”
I jammed my hand into my pocket and pulled out my silenced fucking cell phone. I groaned at the eleven missed calls I had from the man and immediately snatched the phone out of Fangs’ hand. How the hell had my phone been silenced? I had never once silenced the damn thing.
So, while I fiddled with turning up my phone’s ringer volume, I propped the phone against my shoulder.
“This is Goose,” I said.
“Danger zoooooone!” Angel wailed.
My eye twitched. “Really? You’ve called me eleven times just to do that in my ear?”
Nadia cackled in the background as Angel cleared his throat. “Just had to make the girl laugh. You know how it goes.”
I jammed my cell phone back into my pocket. “No, I don’t.”
“Well, anyway,” Angel said as his chuckling fell to the wayside, “Nadia wanted me to call you and see how Harley’s feeling. Any update on her condition?”
The woman’s whistling kept taunting me as Fangs jogged back down the hallway.
“She’s… in shockingly high spirits.”
Angel snickered. “I can only imagine. I’m sure she’s happy to be away from those Devil’s Rage assholes. Especially with that basement. Nadia’s been telling me about it a bit, and it sounds like a—”
“Hey,” I said as a thought occurred to me. “Nadia’s with you, right?”
He paused. “Uh, yeah?”
“Great. Hand her the phone.”
“What?”
“Angel, give Nadia the phone. I’d like to ask her some questions about her first impressions regarding Harley.”
He snickered. “Can’t figure the girl out?”
Not quite. “Would you just do it?”
“Fine, fine. Hold on.”
And after the phone shuffled around for a few seconds.
“Hey there,” Nadia chirped. “Everything okay? How’s my captivity buddy?”
I ignored her question. “When you first met Harley, did she seem scared at all?”
“What?”
“Harley, in the basement. Where you guys first met. Did she seem scared? Or worried? Or frightened in any way?”
“Uuuuuuuuh…”
I rolled my eyes. I hated nonsensical words and sounds like that. She droned on in my ear and I held back a growl while she racked her brain for an answer to my, apparently, very hard question.
“You know what?” Nadia started. “Now that you mention it, she didn’t really seem too scared. If anything, she was determined as hell to get out of there.”
My brow furrowed tightly as my gut churned. “What do you mean, determined?”
“I don’t know. She just seemed… like she had been waiting for someone else. The plan she had for escape required two people, and it was almost like throwing me down there had been her saving grace. If that makes any sense.”
“So, she already had the plan ready to go. Right?”
“Yep! She had already scouted things out. She just needed a second pair of hands to help with things. Honestly? It struck me like she had been down there a while.”
I lowered my voice as I moved away from Harley’s door. “How did the guys act around her? Did you see her interact with them at all?”
“Uh-uh,” she said as a heavy sigh left her lips. “The only other time we interacted with the guys before we busted out of there was when they came to give us food. We had to rush back to the mattress on the floor and pretend like we were just hanging out.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I closed my eyes. “And her injury. How did it happen? Did you see it happen?”
“Oh, yeah. It was pretty rough. It happened while I was pulling Harley through the small window we crawled through. The broken glass sort of slashed both us a bit. Her worse than me though.”
So, her wound shouldn’t be getting worse. “I have one last question. Are you up for it?”
Nadia sniffled. “Uh, sure. Yeah, yeah.”
But it was then that Angel wrangled the phone away from her. “Sorry, she’s done for a while. She’s getting worked up again.”
“I just have one more ques—”
“No,” Angel ground out.
I clenched my jaw. “Yeah, yeah. All right. She needs her rest anyway.”
“Yes, she does.”
I licked my lips. “Can you do me a favor?”
He chuckled. “Don’t mention any of this to Fangs?”
I raked my free hand through my hair. “I don’t have any proof of the feeling I’ve got in my gut, and I don’t want to clue him in until I can prove to him what’s happening.”
“And just so I understand, you think Harley’s been sent to spy on us, right?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Well,” Angel lowered his voice. “You better start to get sure of it. Nadia considers Harley a friend. And knowing Nadia, things aren’t going to go over well if Harley was a plant.”
“I know Angel,” I ground out. “This is why I’m trying to be sure of it.”
“Good,” he said gruffly.
“Hey, when Nadia settles down, can you ask her something for me?” I asked.
“It might take a day or two, but sure. What is it?”
“Can you ask her how dirty Harley looked?”
He paused. “How dirty she was?”
I nodded. “Yes. Just ask Nadia if she seemed dirty. Dusty. Covered in mud or anything like that.”
“Are we looking for a specific answer to that question?”
“Mmmm, yes and no. Just ask her and let me know what she says, okay?”
“Can do, Goose.”
“Oh, and Angel?”
“Uh huh?”
I snickered as I cracked my neck. “Let that poor woman rest, okay?”
He barked with laughter. “Trust me, I’m doing my best.”
“Good. We’ll talk soon.”
“Talk soon, brother.”
As I hung up the phone, I couldn’t stop thinking about Harley’s wound. Every time I checked in on her—every time Nadia looked her over—her wound seemed to get worse. Bigger. More swollen and more irritated. It didn’t make any sense, either. A slash wound from glass didn’t take long to heal from the bottom up. And yet, with Harley’s wound, the damn thing almost seemed to be getting deeper despite the rest she was getting.
Unless she’s not resting at all.
“How was the phone call?” Fangs asked.
I almost came out of my fucking skin as I forced myself to put on a nonchalant face. “Can you believe that asshole was pestering me just to sing ‘Danger Zone’ in my ear?”
Fangs cackled as he took the clubhouse phone from me. “Sounds like Angel. I knew he was all for being cooped up with Nadia, but she might be driving him nuts.”
I grinned. “Either that, or he won’t let her rest.”
Fangs tossed the phone in the air before catching it in his hand. “Well, you keep a lookout on Harley. Nadia says that her wound isn’t healing like she figured it would, so we need to make absolutely certain that she’s resting the way she needs to be.”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
He patted my shoulder. “Good man. I’ll come find you for a report before dinner tonight.”
Fantastic. “I’ll be here.”
As Fangs disappeared around the corner once more, I turned my attention back to Harley’s closed bedroom door. I no longer heard the shower running nor did I hear her whistling, but the light still shined through the slit between the bottom of her door and the floor. I closed my eyes and focused. I tried to take in whatever soft sounds might’ve been happening behind the door. However, there was nothing. There wasn’t even snoring to indicate that she was sleeping.
And good God, could that woman saw some Z’s.
Check-in time. “Harley?”
I knocked on the door before I opened it.
“Harley? You okay in—”
I watched her quickly drop her phone into her lap. “The hell are you doing?”
My gaze fell to where her phone was before dragging up to her eyes. “Checking in on you. Like I always do.”
Her face softened a tad. “I’m okay. Just drip-drying from my shower.”
“And yet, you have your clothes on.”
She blinked. “Did you think I was going to drip-dry naked when I know a man is liable to bust in on me at any second?”
I studied her intently as she sat there, cross-legged. I had no idea how the fuck that position didn’t hurt her injury, and it only poured fuel on the fire burning through my system. Her hair was damp, but it wasn’t as if it was soaked, and I knew I hadn’t been on the phone with Angel for that long. Her clothes were also completely dry. Shouldn't they have been clinging to her body? With wet spots or some shit?
“Goose?” Harley asked.
Her voice pulled me from my trance. “You hungry?”
She furrowed her brow deeply. “Everything okay?”
I nodded. “Are you hungry?”
She shrugged. “I could eat some soup, maybe.”
I started closing her bedroom door. “I’ll bring you some along with some hot tea. I think that’ll help—”
“Goose, wait.”
I paused and gazed over my shoulder at her. “Yeah?”
Her eyes danced between my own. “Would you… maybe like to have dinner with me?”
“No,” I said plainly. “I’ll be back soon with your dinner.”
Then, I closed the door and let out the breath I had been holding.
Before I started toward the kitchen to put dinner together for the woman that I knew was spying on us.