Free The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) by Stan Hayes

still trying to make out exactly what Jack’s mood was this morning. “What’s the plan?”
    “First, I’ll scare you up a hard hat; then I’ll bring the little BMW down here and check you out on the controls. Not a whole lot to it, particularly if you’ve ever ridden an English bicycle with the brake levers on the handlebars. The main thing you’ll need to get used to is working the clutch; no new rider, and I mean nobody, ever gives the engine enough gas and eeeases-” holding up his left fist, he slowly opened the fingers to their full extension- “the clutch out, letting it slip a little as you move forward. If you can keep the engine running the first time you try to get underway, I’ll kiss your ass at midday, and give you half an hour to draw a crowd.”
    “I’ll take you up on that, buster, and the location’s gonna be the Dog House parking lot.”
    “The Famous James’d love that,” Jack said with the first hint of a smile that she’d seen from him this morning. “Well, when you get the Kraut-cycle going in a straight line, just ride on up to the gate. I’ll be up there to help you get turned around, and you can make that round-trip from the house to the gate ’til you feel like you’ve got the hang of it. Then we’ll add shifting gears and when you’re ready, we’ll take it out on the road. I’ll trail you on the Vincent to the intersection at the bottom of the hill down there. Then you can hang a right and we’ll ride down that way for a short stretch, then back to the house. This time of day, I doubt there’ll be any traffic at all. After we’ve done that a few times, you’ll probably know enough to be dangerous.”
    “Oh, goody. Then we can ride into town.”
    It was no surprise to Jack that she turned out to be an apt student. A handful of round trips on the prescribed course of driveway and country road, interspersed with a few questions, were all she needed to achieve basic control of the little single-cylinder BMW. Relieving him of his apprehension of having to talk her out of an immediate ride into town, she ended her first lesson with the comment that there was a little bit more to this motorcycle thing than she’d imagined. Unbuckling the aluminum “pudding-bowl” helmet’s chinstrap, she freed her auburn hair with a shake. “I think I need to log a few more miles out here on the back roads before I start aiming this thing between cars,” she said. “Any reason I can’t spend this afternoon doing that?”
    Having gotten the motorcycles back in the barn before dark, they sat together before the fireplace in the den, Ballantine’s-and-sodas leaching out instructor/student tensions, feet up on the long, sturdy coffee table watching the flames crawl up out of the kindling and embrace the Poplar fire logs. “Well, Sparky, I sure had me some fun today,” Linda told him, underscoring the extent of her enjoyment with an affectionate squeeze of his thigh.
    “Yeah, I could tell.” After a deep pull on his drink, he said, “There’s this guy around town, Lonnie Buckles. Lost his left arm in a hay-baler, but that wasn’t enough to stop him riding. Traded his Harley for a Triumph so he could shift gears with his foot, switched the clutch lever to the right-hand bar, and kept on scootin’. He was the first person I ever heard say that riding a motorcycle’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”
    She laughed abruptly, from a place down deep inside that she reserved for things that truly pleased her. “Weather permitting, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a whole lot of fun with your clothes off.”
    “As long as you keep your boots on. I wonder how far we’d get, riding bare-ass from here to the Dog House. Be a nice say-bye to Bisque; they’d never forget it, or us either. And can you imagine the laugh that Pete’d get out of it?”
    “It’d turn him back into Mose, at least for a minute or two.” After their joint mirth subsided, she