CALL GIRL: Chrome Horsemen MC

by Evelyn Glass

  As she approached the house, she could see him talking to a man as he dropped off a pair of cars. Both were obviously badly damaged in a wreck, but remembering what Dix had said, she could see there were some useable parts on them.

  “Lunch is ready, James,” she said as she stepped up beside him.

  “Be right there,” he said with a nod.

  As she stepped onto the porch she saw the dump truck growling its way out of the yard, the loader rumbling long behind it. She went inside and began filling glasses with ice and pop. There were beers in the fridge, but it seemed like a bad idea to drink beer then operate heavy machinery, so pop it was.

  She heard the loader fall silent, then a moment later Dix appeared, pulling her into a hug and giving her a quick kiss. “I see you finally woke up,” he teased, still holding her in his embrace.

  “What time did you get up this morning?”

  “About five-thirty. I knew the steel truck would be here early and I had to get you breakfast.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I did. I ate the last two Poptarts this morning.”

  She giggled. “Poptarts, the breakfast of champions.”

  He grinned and shrugged. “I need to go wash up.”

  “Are we going to wait for James?” she asked when he appeared from the bath.

  “Normally we just eat when we can find a minute, but we can if you want.”

  She was torn on what to do. “No, I don’t want to disrupt the rout—”

  “I’m starving!” James said as he entered the house. “Let me wash my hands and I’ll be right there.”

  “I guess we can wait,” Dix said with a grin.

  “Daisy, thank you for doing this,” James said as he stepped into the kitchen. “You don’t have to wait on us.”

  “I think it’s the least I can do considering all the help you’ve given me. It’s not much, just sandwiches.”

  “Which is what we normally eat for lunch,” James said as he opened his sandwich and placed the pickle slices on Dix’s plate. “Gives me indigestion,” he added as explanation.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” He turned his attention to Dix. “After lunch I have to run a delivery. Can you start pulling parts on those cars? I had the driver unload one in the bay.”

  Dix nodded as she chewed. “Sure, no problem. I’ll get Daisy to help,” he said after he swallowed, grinning at her.

  “I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”

  “You can hold stuff can’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then plenty.”

  She grinned. “Then I’ll be glad to help.”

  “I saw you out tootling around in your car this morning. It looks like you have improved a lot,” James said.

  She nodded, pleased someone noticed. “Getting there. So long as I do the shifting right, it’s much easier to drive because I don’t have worry about trying to keep it running. And it goes a lot better, too.”

  “Funny how that works,” Dix said. “That motor makes the full fifty horsepower. The one we took out of your car would be lucky to make thirty. Plus, there’s a reason most VWs were sold with a manual. That Autostick thing you had was terrible. Nobody buys a car with one of those unless they’re planning on converting it to a manual, like we did with yours. Basically, you now know how the car drove when it was new.”

  She giggled. “A lot better than it did last week, that’s for sure. Thank you both again.”

  James reached over and gave her hand a pat but said nothing.

  ***

  “Hold this,” Dix said, moving to the other side as Daisy held the bumper. “Got it?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, bracing to catch the weight, but when it came free, she was surprised it weighed next to nothing.

  “Thanks. This is a lot easier with two so I don’t have to deal with the bumper flopping all around.”

  He lowered the car then began on the doors. There wasn’t a lot of useful in the car. The passenger front seat, the rear seat, the two passenger side doors and the driver’s side rear, trunk lid and rear bumper. That was it. The rest was going into the crusher.

  When he sat the first door to the side, she was going to move it out of the way, but could barely lift it, so she left it. She was impressed. He handled the door like it weighed no more than the bumper, so he was immensely strong, and yet his touch could be incredibly gentle.

  “Tell me about the race your club runs,” she said as he attacked the second door.

  “What do you want to know?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything, I guess. Do you race?”

  “You remember what Cale said, how we run the race four times a year?” When she nodded, he continued. “Each race is divided into four classes. Under six hundred, six hundred to seven fifty, over seven fifty and unlimited.”

  “Those are the size of the engines, right?”

  “Right. With the exception of the unlimited class, the bikes have to be licensed and ridden to and from the event. That helps prevent people from running a ringer in one of the other races.”

  “So if you can’t ride it on the road, you can’t race it?”

  “Except in the unlimited class, yes. So if you have this superbike, but it’s tuned so tight that it isn’t streetable, the ride to and from the track with the slow speeds and traffic are going to cause problems with the bike. Same for riding it back. If it can only survive one lap of the track, and you can’t ride it back to Dunes, then you forfeit your win. If you want to race a pure race bike, put it in the unlimited class where you can compete against other pure race bikes.”

  “Do you race?”

  He smiled as he removed the next door and sat it aside. “Yeah.”

  “But not on your Harley?”

  He laughed. “No. I race in the unlimited class.”

  “Really?” she said, drawing the word out.

  “Yeah. A few years ago I bought a three-year-old MotoGP bike. I’ve modifying it ever since.”

  “MotoGP?”

  “You heard of Formula One car racing?”

  She shook her head.

  He shook his head and grinned as he lifted off the last door. “Basically, it’s Formula One racing for motorcycles. It’s where the best technology goes and they’re the lightest, fastest, bikes on the planet. There will be several bikes in the race this year in the over seven fifty class that might be quicker in a straight line, but none of them will be able to keep up with an unlimited machine. The Green Hell isn’t about straight line speed; it’s about cornering.”

  “And, yet, you ride a Harley.”

  “So?”

  “So, Harleys aren’t exactly known for tearing up race tracks are they?”

  “No, but compared to my Moto, everything feels slow, and as I told you before, my hog is classier and more practical than those rice rockets the other guys ride.”

  Dix was such an interesting mix of contractions and surprises. He cruised around on a Harley, and yet, he also rode one of the fastest bikes in the world. He was hugely strong, and at the same time so very tender and gentle. He worked in a recycling yard, but James said he was gifted engine builder. He could pound her through the bed, but in the next instant, be making tender love to her.

  “The Green Hell. That’s where you race?”

  “Yeah,” he said as he wrote on the salvaged pieces with a heavy white crayon, noting what they came off of. “It’s a seventeen mile loop we marked out, way out in the Siuslaw. We close off the entrances, set up timing markers to record the rider’s times, and send riders out at two minute intervals. Fastest time back to the start wins.”

  “So the riders don’t race against each other?”

  “No. This way, riders don’t get stupid and crash trying to pass. It’s you against the clock.”

  She waited as he dragged the car out of the bay with the fork truck, then shoved the other one in.

&
nbsp; “And the Cutthroats get ten percent of the take?” she asked as he resumed work on the new car.

  “That’s right. Ten thousand to enter. The club takes ten percent. Of the ninety percent that’s left, the winner gets seventy-five percent, the second place twenty, and third five.”

  “You have to pay to enter?”

  “Of course. When it comes to racing, brothers get no special consideration. We pay, and win or lose just like everyone else.”

  “Do you win?”

  Dix grinned. “Not every time, but most of the time. It’s my home track so I have the advantage, especially in the rain.”

  She was surprised to hear that. “You race in the rain?”

  He chuckled. “If we didn’t we would have to cancel more races than we run. Can’t make money that way.”

  Daisy nodded. It was a bright sunny day today, but she’d never seen so much rain in her life. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  He nodded. “Very. But so is racing in the dry. If you run off the road you’re into the trees instantly. It’s how Kevin died. Dumping the bike probably won’t hurt you if you’re wearing armor, but hitting a tree at one fifty? No armor can protect you from that.”

  “Anyone die?”

  “One.”

  “Kevin?” she asked and he nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It could have happened to any of us. It shouldn’t have happened to Kevin, though. The Firechrome are going to have to answer for that.”

  The coldness in his voice chilled her. Despite his kindness, she could tell he wasn’t someone you wanted to piss off. “Can I see it? The track?”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Just curious. I want to see what the Firechrome are so hot and heavy for.”

  He shrugged then grinned. “Sure. I’d offer to take you around on the Moto, but there’s only one seat.”

  She waved her hands in front of her. “No, no, that’s okay. Your Harley is fine.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Thank you, Daisy,” James said as he pushed back from the table. “If you keep cooking like that, I’m going to get fat.”

  She smiled, his compliment warming her. “My pleasure, James. I’m glad you liked it.”

  “It was excellent,” Dix chimed in. “First time I’ve ever had homemade tacos.”

  She was doubly proud of these. Not only had she made them, but she managed to get to the grocery store and back in her own car.

  Dix helped to clear the table as James retired to the office to do paperwork. “Are we still on for the ride?” she asked.

  “What kind of ride?” he asked as he gave her ass a slow caress.

  “I was thinking on the Green Hell, but if you’d rather do the other, I think I can be talked into it.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t see why we can’t do both.”

  “Even better.”

  “I want to clean up first.”

  “You want me to help?” she teased.

  “Do you want to take a tour of the track or not?”

  She twittered. “Okay, fine. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

  He placed the last of the dishes on the sink for her to rinse then kissed her on the neck. “For now, anyway.”

  ***

  They rode for about thirty minutes along country roads, delving deeper and deeper into the Siuslaw National Forest, before he slowed, then circled the bike in the road. “This is the start.”

  She looked around. There was a natural widening in the forest with a large area where cars could pull off and enjoy the view across the valley. She didn’t know a thing about racing, but it made sense that they would need a place to stage the racers.

  “Behind us about a quarter mile is the finish line. I’ll show you when we get there. You ready?”

  “Yes, but not too fast, okay?”

  He smiled at the apprehension in her voice. “Not too fast. Just a nice comfortable pace.”

  At first she was nervous because he seemed to be riding the roads far too fast, but she soon relaxed when she realized he was in complete control of the bike, never crossed the center line, and his braking and acceleration were smooth and easy. He danced the bike along the road, leaning his way and that, the Harley’s song rising and falling in time with the road.

  She now understood why Dix said the race wasn’t about straight-line speed. There were no straights, not long ones anyway. There were several places where you could straighten a series of curves if you didn’t mind riding into oncoming traffic, but even those were few and far between. They had to make one stop, which she assumed the riders ignored during the race, before making a hard turn to the right.

  As they rode, she wondered if Dix had forgotten to stop and show her the finish line. All the roads looked the same and she had no way of knowing if the pull offs they passed were the same one they had stopped at or not.

  Finally, Dix stopped by a large rock outcropping. “This is the finish line.”

  “That whole ride was the track?”

  He chuckled. “Seventeen miles of Green Hell.” He revved the bike and they rode the short distance before he pulled into the overlook where they started and switched off the bike.

  She stepped off the bike and he followed. “How long did that take us?

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t time us. Probably about forty minutes.”

  “Wow! How long does it take on your bike?”

  He grinned. “It takes a car almost an hour to make that same loop, like we did, at a normal pace. An under six hundred bike with a good rider can do it in about twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes? You’ve got to be kidding?” she squawked.

  He chuckled. “No. The bikes in the seven-fifty class, they can do it in about fifteen. The over seven-fifty in about thirteen and the unlimiteds in about twelve.”

  “No way! Twelve minutes?”

  He shrugged. “The course record for the unlimited class is twelve minutes, thirteen seconds and change. That’s about eighty-five miles per hour on average. Your Bug will almost go that fast.”

  “Not on roads as curvy as those!”

  “No,” he agreed. “But on a bike, when you don’t have to worry about cars so you can use the entire track, you can straighten it out some. But like I said, the Green Hell isn’t about speed; it’s about being able to corner.”

  “Who has the track record?” she asked. He grinned and looked away. “You?”

  “Yeah. That was the one perfect run. I haven’t been able to get within two seconds of it again.”

  “Two seconds? That’s nothing!”

  “Two seconds is forever. We time to the thousandth of a second because two seconds may be all that separates the first five or six positions.”

  “Wow!”

  He took her hand. “Come on. Let’s walk.” He led her to the far corner of the parking area and she noticed a faint trail leading into the forest. They followed the trail, stepping over fallen trees and pushing aside undergrowth.

  “Where are we going?”

  “A little place the locals know about.”

  “Does James know you race?” she asked as they made their way down the trail.

  “He knows, but he doesn’t come watch. It hits a little too close to home for him, I think.”

  They walked for another half hour, making small talk, before stopping on a flat rock outcropping that overlooked the same valley as the public overlook, but with a much better view. He steered her across the huge rock to another short ledge perfect for sitting, set back from the edge and tucked under some trees. He picked her up as if she were no more than a bag of feathers and sat her on the ledge, then turned his back to it and hopped up to sit beside her.

  “Some view,” she said as she slowly kicked her feet.

  “Beautiful.”

  She noticed he was looking at her when he said that and not the majestic scene before them. “Oh, would you stop,” she teased as she gave him a push on the shoulder, though she was s
ecretly pleased by his attention.

  He turned to look out over the forest below. “The scenery’s not bad either.”

  She snickered as she shook her head. She reached over and took his hand, holding in in silence for many long moments, enjoying his company.