Free Ride Angel Ride: A Biker Erotic Romance (Red Skulls MC) by Emily Stone Page A

repair shop when her dad had stepped into the background. It wasn’t exactly nepotism, though. She had more than inherited his feel for motors and his love of bikes. She hadn’t exactly cut her teeth on socket wrenches, but she was using them properly by the time she was eight, and could take apart an engine and put it back on the road in perfect tune by the time she was ten.
     
    Mary flipped the switch for the neon sign on and off, on and off, as she looked around the shop. She loved her work. She loved the bikes. She even loved most of the club members– most of the time. What she didn’t love was how they treated her.
     
    Yes, they respected her as shop manager. Yes, they took her suggestions seriously and obeyed her orders. But they treated her like a like a ten-year-old girl, not like a woman. Or maybe they treated her like a woman that had to be protected from everything and everybody. Either way, it made her feel like a little girl with a hundred nannies watching over her.
     
    Maybe they were afraid of her father. He had always been overly protective of her. She was his only child, born late in life to him and her mother. She could never remember her mother not being sick. Then, when she was seven, mom was gone.
     
    Dad had always kept her close after that. As she got older, he had a way of suddenly appearing in that shiny custom bike that C.J. had made for him whenever one of her male classmates happened to stop by. One look from those cold, steel-blue eyes looking out from above that white mustache and goatee, and the boy would never return. Then that boy would tell other boys, and they would tell others, until eventually all the boys at school had parted as she walked down the hallways, as if she were a leper. She even ended up going to the prom alone.
     
    After she had graduated from high school, once or twice one of the club members had tried to approach her, but as soon as her dad found out, they would always back off, and she knew why. She had once watched her father corner a young man who had become friendly with her and tell him sternly, “You touch my baby girl and I’ll change your status to momma.” He got up real close into the young man’s face and said coldly, “and I’ll do the operation myself.”
     
    She snapped the switch to the off position and said out loud to herself, “I could walk out into the middle of the shop naked and no one would even notice... or at least they wouldn’t do anything.” She let out a deep sigh, and then she cocked her head as she heard an approaching bike that sounded off– not badly sick, but ailing. She rose out of the chair and headed out into the shop.
     

 
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    The bike was a brand-new Harley Davidson Ultra Limited with Texas plates. The engine wasn’t exactly missing, but it didn’t sound right. There was an odd sound, perhaps in the exhaust. The rider was a very handsome young Hispanic.
     
    She greeted him as he rolled up to the entrance. “Sounds like you’ve got a sick bike.”
     
    He answered, “It’s more or less OK on the open road, but something’s wrong with the acceleration and it starts losing power on long hills. You got a mechanic that can check it out?”
     
    “You’re looking at her,” she tried not to react to the look of shock and surprise on his face.
     
    “I don’t want just anybody touching my new ride,” he said, “I got her just before this trip for long-distance runs and I want her treated right.”
     
    “If you want to read my Harley certifications, they’re on the wall of my office. I’m Mary Taylor, the shop manager.”
     
    “At’s girl?” he said, with an even greater look of surprise.
     
    Mary was somewhat surprised as well. Very few people ever called her father “At.” Doing so usually meant the person knew him very well... or didn’t know him at all.
     
    He reached out his hand. “I’m Roger Martinez, President of the Dallas chapter. I came up a little early for the