by Jessie Cooke
“What’s that?”
“Grow your hair back out...I miss it.”
Finn leaned in and kissed her again. “I’ll never cut it again.”
“I love you too, by the way,” Caitlin said. Finn couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever been happier. He knew he still had some issues to deal with and that the monster in his head that wanted him to turn to drugs when things got rough would always be there...but now he’d have his club, and his old lady by his side, and that was all he needed.
Excerpt from Tse
SKULLS The Early Years (Skulls MC Romance Book 25)
Chapter One
Phoenix Arizona…Early Summer 1974
The weather in Phoenix had been fickle all year and Ajei was feeling the effects of being stuck inside. She had begged off going to the church services on the reservation with her grandmother, her aunt Lena, and her cousins that morning, feigning a stomachache. Ajei didn’t like to lie, especially to her aunt, but when she woke up and saw the sun she knew she’d never be able to spend the day inside. She waited until they were gone and then snuck out to the kitchen hoping her uncle Malcolm would be so into his football game that he wouldn’t notice her.
Ajei came to live with her aunt and uncle after her mother died when she was twelve. She’d been there for five years now and she still didn’t feel comfortable with her uncle. She was always respectful to him and polite but there was just something about him that set her on edge. She felt guilty about that since he had opened up his home to her and taken her in. The house was small and Ajei shared a room with her grandmother. Ama Sani was one of her favorite people and sometimes when she talked to Ajei about Malcolm, Ajei got the sense that her grandmother was trying to warn her to stay away from him, without coming right out and saying it. It would be considered a veritable sin in their culture to disrespect the head of the household where you were living, but her grandmother’s wariness and her own was enough to keep her from spending much time alone with her aunt’s quiet husband.
She made it to the kitchen with her leather satchel and she had almost finished packing it up with a sandwich, a drink, and a few snacks when she felt a presence behind her. She turned slowly and saw her uncle standing in the doorway, looking at her. It was a hungry look in his eyes, like a wolf, when he looked at her body—one that made her want to crawl out of her own skin. She forced a smile and said, “Good morning, uncle.”
“Good morning, Ajei. Why didn’t you go to church?”
She had been hard pressed to lie to her aunt but lying to the man in charge of the household proved too much for her. With a lump of shame in her chest she said, “I told Aunt Lena I wasn’t feeling well.”
He raised a dark eyebrow and said, “And was that the truth?”
“No, sir. I’m so sorry. I just woke up and saw the sun and I felt drawn to spending the morning outside.”
She was surprised when her uncle smiled. She’d expected him to be angry and lecture her and send her to her room. Instead he said, “I don’t blame you. It’s been a while since we’ve seen the sun. Sometimes the less your Aunt Lena knows, the better. There are things she wouldn’t understand.” That last sentence sent a chill down Ajei’s spine although she wasn’t sure why. It seemed innocent enough, but it was the dark look in Malcolm’s eyes that made it sinister somehow. She was aching to get away from him, if only to escape down the hallway to her room. Sharing it with her grandmother was her saving grace. Malcolm never set foot over the threshold out of respect for his wife’s mother.
“I’m sorry I lied.”
“I’ll forgive you,” he said with a wink, “just this once. So where are you going to enjoy the sun?”
Ajei was shocked that he was still going to let her go, but nervously she said, “I had planned to go down to the swimming hole. I thought I’d see if I could borrow one of the horses.” Jeremiah, one of the elders on the reservation, had a stable full of horses he was no longer able to ride. He loaned them out to the young people now and Ajei had become a very good rider. She always rode the same horse, a chestnut gelding called “Shandiin.” In their language it meant sunlight, or sunshine. Ajei never told anyone, but she thought that “Sunshine” and she were part of the same spirit. The Navajo believed their deceased had the chance to come back as any animal they chose as long as they had lived a righteous life. Ajei liked to believe Sunshine was one of her ancestors because they had bonded so deeply. She even sometimes liked to believe Sunshine carried her father’s soul. Ajei had never met him or any of his relatives, but her mother talked about him a lot before she died and Ajei had pictures of him and the medals he’d won along with the American flag they had draped over his coffin when he died. He’d been a “Code Talker” in the war and Ajei’s mother told her he was the bravest man she’d ever met.
“That sounds wonderful.” Malcolm said. “An almost perfect day. It is too bad you don’t have a young man to enjoy it with you.” Malcolm had mentioned Ajei’s lack of suitors before. Ajei had plenty of young men who would like to take her out, but she always turned them down. Most of them only had one thing on their mind anyway and she wasn’t about to take the chance on getting pregnant young like her mother did. Ajei was born when her mother was the age she was now, seventeen. She was only twenty-nine years old when cancer took her and because of her devotion to her daughter, she died without ever experiencing life. Ajei wanted to see and do everything. She wanted to meet different people and explore other cultures. The married women and the women with children she knew did none of that, and she couldn’t help but look at the older women on the reservation sometimes and pity them for not having the same light in their eyes she was sure they’d had when they were young. She felt the light inside of her and she intended to set it free.
“I like the solitude,” she said. “I am sorry I lied, but is it okay with you if I go still?”
He winked again and this time he ran his tongue along his bottom lip. Ajei was a virgin, but she was still a woman and she knew that look. It was obscene, most especially because he was her uncle and any relations between them would be forbidden even if the thought of it didn’t turn her stomach. “It’s okay,” he said. “It will be our secret.” She grabbed her satchel and said, “Thank you,” before turning quickly toward the door. She was stopped by the sound of him calling her name.
“Ajei, just remember that I kept your secret this time. Someday I might need you to return the favor.” She couldn’t stop the shudder that ripped through her when she looked into his dark eyes. She even thought about saying forget the whole thing and staying at home, but now even the thought of being alone in the house with him frightened her. Instead she forced a smile that she wasn’t sure looked real and said, “Thank you, uncle,” once more, before going out the door.
As soon as she was outside the gates and the dogs were locked in behind her, she threw her satchel over her shoulder and started to run. She ran all the way to the stables on the reservation, three miles away. She found Jeremiah sitting in his rocking chair out in front of the little general store. He had owned and run the store for over forty years and from what she heard it used to be a busy little place. Jeremiah was old, though, and tired. He had gradually reduced his inventory until mostly it was just a place now where people stopped by and had coffee or a beer depending on what time of day it was. He had a row of old stables out back and three horses that he couldn’t ride any longer, so he made them available for the young people who lived on or near the reservation. “Good morning, Jeremiah. Is Sunshine available today?”
The old man smiled. His skin was so wrinkled that it moved up and almost covered his eyes when he did. He was missing a tooth on one side on top and the whole row on the bottom. Ajei thought he was adorable, like one of the shrunken-head dolls her grandmother had shown her how to make out of potatoes. “Sunshine is always available for you, Ajei. He waits for you to come and ride him.”
She beamed. “Thank you!” She gave Jeremiah a hug and ran out to the s
tables. She threw open the door and went straight to Sunshine’s stall. The horse whinnied when he saw her. She ran a hand down the side of his face and then took the apple she’d brought from home out of her bag and let him eat it while she got his bridle and blanket ready. Ajei didn’t use a saddle, just a woolen blanket and a bridle with no bit. She liked for Sunshine to feel as free as she did while they rode.
“Are you ready, boy?” she asked him before slipping the bridle over his nose and tossing the blanket over his back. She put her bag over her shoulder again and then used the wooden stool inside Sunshine’s stall to step up and throw her leg over his back. The long sarong she wore over her bathing suit fell open, exposing her sun-kissed thigh. She grabbed the reins and clicked her tongue at the horse and he trotted out of the open stall. They were just coming out of the front of the stable when the loud sound of an engine frightened them both. Sunshine began to whinny and pace, pulling the opposite way to where Ajei wanted him to go. She lay forward and pressed her mouth to his ear. In soothing tones she told him everything was okay while she ran her fingers though his chestnut hair.
The motorcycle stopped in front of the store and Ajei saw Jeremiah stand up. He walked with a cane and a stoop, and she’d never seen him move so fast as he did when the man on the motorcycle pulled off his helmet. She could actually understand when she looked at him herself. The man was huge, like a mountain, she thought. His shoulders looked like they stretched five feet from right to left and his biceps, decorated with tribal bands, looked bigger than two of her thighs put together. His skin was a light mocha color and his black hair was long and so shiny it looked like dark glass. He was smiling at the old man and Ajei couldn’t help but smile too. His was infectious and she caught it quickly.
“Tse!” Jeremiah said in his raspy voice. The young man stepped off his bike and towered over the stooped old man, but he bent down and opened his big arms, taking the old man into them and giving him a hug that, strangely, Ajei’s body suddenly ached for. She watched like a voyeur as the two men talked, mostly in their native language, much of which she didn’t understand. The young man laughed at something the old man said, and as he threw his head back, that was when he saw her there on the horse, watching them. He stopped laughing and the smile fell from his face, but another look suddenly filled his dark brown eyes, one that sent a thrill through her young body.
“Well, hello there,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Ajei,” she said, nervously.
The big, sexy man smiled again and another thrill ran through her as he put his hand on his chest and said, “My heart.” For a few seconds Ajei forgot that was what her name meant and she just let herself swim in the look in his eyes. It was warm there and inviting, and suddenly the thoughts that nagged her to wait until she was thirty years old to find a man and settle down were dust in the far recesses of her brain. “I’m Tse...but you can call me Rock.” Rock. That was so appropriate. She had to wonder if he’d been a huge, muscular baby and his parents knew he’d turn out to be as large as a mountain and as hard as a rock when they gave him his name.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. Jeremiah was still looking up at the young man with awe in his eyes. He finally turned to Ajei and said:
“Tse is my nephew.”
“Oh, how nice,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Are you here for a visit?” Rock smiled at her again and said:
“Who knows...maybe a week, a month, or a lifetime. Maybe the wind blew me here from New Mexico on purpose, to get to know the local flora.” She felt her cheeks burn, and the heat from them and the implications of his words began to spread through her body. She wasn’t experienced talking to men, especially men so handsome and so close to her own age. Fearing she would embarrass herself if she tried, unprepared, she said:
“Welcome. I hope you enjoy your visit with your uncle. Jeremiah, I’ll have Sunshine back before nightfall.”
“What about the horse?” Rock asked, playfully.
“Excuse me?” Ajei truly didn’t understand the compliment. She wasn’t used to flirting.
“You said you’d bring the sunshine back, I just wondered if you were bringing the horse as well.” He was calling her the sunshine, which sent another blush racing up her neck and into her face. It took a lot for her to pull her eyes away from his intense gaze. When she finally did, she turned Sunshine toward the hills behind them. She was breathless as she rode away, and she could feel her heart hammering into her ribcage. Her body was still filled with heat when she was a mile up the trail. She found herself torn between hoping he was still there when she got back and wishing he’d go back where he came from. The intensity of his effect on her was almost frightening but thrilling at the same time. She could feel all that self-control she’d practiced around other young men her age practically evaporating through her pores. She cursed her hormones and continued to ride until she came to the deserted, quiet little spot where a waterfall created a clear, constantly moving body of water.
She slid off Sunshine’s back and removed his blanket, letting him drink from the stream while she took off her sarong and tank top. She started to step in, but impulsively she also pulled off the swimsuit she’d been wearing underneath. It wouldn’t be her first time skinny-dipping at the deserted pool, and the encounter with Rock had left her almost bathed in her own sweat already. She stepped into the cool, refreshing pool of water and waded out to the center of it. It only came up to her waist, leaving her face, arms, and breasts bathed in the warmth of the sun. She closed her eyes and turned her face upward and that was when life came crashing down around her.
Ajei gasped when she felt the big arm snake around her waist and pull her backwards. She opened her mouth to scream, but a big hand immediately clamped down across it. It wouldn’t matter anyway; no one would hear her. She had to save herself.
Ajei twisted her body and tried to kick and claw at him as her body was dragged out of the water and viciously tossed on the ground, where her face slammed into a rock and the needles that had blown or fallen off the cacti and Joshua trees pierced her skin. She reached over her head with both hands and clawed at the dirt, trying to pull herself up to her knees. She’d barely gotten a few inches away when he grabbed a handful of her long hair and yanked her head back so hard she heard her neck crack. She was so terrified that she couldn’t imagine anything worse than what she was sure this man was about to do to her. But when he twisted her around and tossed her onto her back, she saw quickly how much worse things could get. She closed her eyes to try to block him out and also to say a prayer for protection from Mother Earth. She heard him laugh softly and say:
“You’ll want to keep your eyes open for this. You’re going to love it, My Heart.”
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Acknowledgments
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Other Books by Jessie Cooke
Coming August 2019…
Tse ‘Rock’: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 25)
Coming September 2019…
AJ: Phoenix Skulls (Skulls MC Book 26)
Available NOW!
DAX: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 1)
CODY: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 2)
GUNNER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 3)
ZACK: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 4)
LEVI: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC
Book 5)
KAT: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 6)
HUNTER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 7)
GARRETT: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 8)
WHEELIE: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 9)
JIGSAW: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 10)
CHOPPER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 11)
RYDER: Southside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 12)
WOLF 1: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 13)
WOLF 2: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 14)
BRUF: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 15)
ASH: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 16)
SLEDGE: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 17)
MAZ: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 18)
Doc Marshall: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 19)
Coyote Lee: The Early Years (Skulls MC Book 20)
BECK: Westside Skulls (Skulls MC Book 21)
Rise of the Phoenix (Skulls MC Book 22)
JACE: Phoenix Skulls (Skulls MC Book 23)
FINN: Phoenix Skulls (Skulls MC Book 24)
Best of the Bad Boys
JAKE - Best of the Bad Boys (Book 1)
BROCK - Best of the Bad Boys (Book 2)
JAGGER - Best of the Bad Boys (Book 3)
KYLE - Best of the Bad Boys (Book 4)
BLAKE - Best of the Bad Boys (Book 5)
Just like Grey
Just like Grey: Series ONE Complete Collection
Just like Grey: Series TWO
Just like Grey: Series THREE