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

chapter president’s meeting. My friends call me Speedy. If you’re At’s girl, I guess I can trust you with my bike.”
     
    As he turned to take something from the cargo bin behind the momma seat, Mary saw the red skull and flames on the back of his jacket. Circled above the emblem was “The Red Skulls.” Beneath in a straight line it said, “Dallas.”
     
    “What do you think’s wrong?” he asked. “You got any woman’s intuition?”
     
    Mary just laughed and replied, “Have to look at it first. Let’s see what the computer says is wrong.”
     
    “That’s why I was hoping for a woman’s intuition,” he responded with a laugh. “I’ve stopped at three other dealerships along the way but all they could tell me was that their computers said that everything’s working like it should be aside from a slight loss of compression on the right side. They took the plugs out and scoped it, but the rings look good, the walls look good, the valves look good, everything looks good. But after I’m on the road for a while, when I kick it in the ass, it doesn’t respond like it should.”
     
    “Let’s still see what the computer says,” she answered, “but the sound tells me it’s a valve. Didn’t any of these places listen to it?” She paused, looking at the engine, and said, “Hell with it. We’ll skip the computer. Let me get my ears.”
     
    She walked back inside and came back a moment later with a stethoscope around her neck. “Going to listen to my heartbeat?” Roger asked. “Watching you walk around in those tight jeans has it up a little.”
     
    Mary found herself almost blushing. Did he really say that? Was he flirting with her?
     
    She held up the stethoscope and explained, “In the old days, daddy would stick a screwdriver against the block and put his ear against the handle. He bought me this because he didn’t think sticking a screwdriver in my ear looked ladylike.”
     
    “Oh, I think you’d always look ladylike. Or a likeable lady, at the very least.”
     
    Mary thought to herself, He really is flirting with me. He definitely doesn’t know daddy very well... or doesn’t know him at all.
     
    The stethoscope had a long probe sticking out from its center. Mary touched the point of the probe against the side of the right cylinder. Then she looked up at Roger and said, “Start it up and rev it.”
     
    Roger did so, and Mary glowered with anger. “Not only did they not listen to your bike,” she spit out, “they didn’t read the damn service bulletins. You’ve got a dead spring.”
     
    “A what?” he exclaimed.
     
    “These new 103’s run hotter than a bitch in heat,” she explained. “The old-style valve springs can’t handle the heat and a couple of the old ones somehow got mixed into a production run a while back. They sent out a bulletin on it. The spring softens under the heat and gets deformed. Then the valve doesn’t seal completely. It gets worse with heat and acceleration.”
     
    “So what do I do?” he asked.
     
    Mary signaled for him to kill the engine. “I can put in a new spring in about an hour, be done by three, four at the latest. But you really should have the heads replaced– both of them, in case the valves or valve seats have been compromised. After I put in the spring, we should probably take it out on the road and stress it to see if the other springs are good.”
     
    “‘We’? That sounds interesting.”
     
    Mary was thinking exactly that herself, but she couldn’t just say, “I would love to go out and ride with you because you aren’t afraid of me or the club.” Instead she said, “That way I can listen to the engine when it’s really hot and see if any of the other springs are getting deformed. Or, we could spend two days waiting for new heads to come in from Milwaukee and another two days taking the engine apart and rebuilding it.”
     
    As they pushed the bike toward the shop, one of the mechanics came out to meet them.