Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells (28 page)

Grace took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. How bad could it all be, anyway? Millions of people knew how to drive a stick shift. If they could do it, she could do it. She just had to stay calm, keep her wits about her, and pretend Declan was a stranger.

She heard the low, grumbling roar of an engine, the sound so deep that she could feel it in her bones. Somewhere, elephants and whales were trying to answer that subsonic message. A primitive part of Grace wanted to run and hide under a bush.

From the side drive that led to the garages, an antique, cranberry red speedster convertible emerged into the courtyard. Like the Duesenberg, it had a long, narrow hood and enormous rounded fenders over the wheels. It was a two-seater, and where its trunk should have been, the car tapered off into a point that looked a little like the prow of a boat. Big chrome bumpers reflected sunlight like mirrors, and head to tail the car must have been more than fifteen feet long.

Declan pulled to a stop in front of Grace and shut off the motor.

Grace gaped at the thing, immediately forgetting her promise to herself to remain composed. “What the hell is
that
?”

“It’s a 1971 re-creation of a 1935 Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster,” Declan answered. “Not my thing, really. I prefer survivors.”

“What?”

“Original cars that have survived, as opposed to re-creations.”

“Why do I have to learn on this?”

“I don’t think you’d want to learn on an original 1935 car. The shifting is a little different than on a modern transmission.”

Grace waved away his explanation. “No, I mean, why do I have to learn on a goddamn speedster that’s probably worth half a million dollars?”

“Half a million? This?” Declan laughed. “No. A hundred thousand, tops.”

Grace put her hands over her eyes and breathed deeply.
Calm. Must be calm
. She dropped her hands from her eyes and squared her shoulders. Come hell or high water, she was going to learn to drive that car today.

Declan shut off the engine and got out, holding open the driver-side door for her. Grace made a grimace of a smile and slid onto the tiny bench seat, and then looked in horror over the long, long hood of the car. Forget mastering the stick shift; she couldn’t even see the road!

“God help me,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Declan asked, getting in the passenger side, his arm brushing hers in the tight confines of the cockpit.

“I said, ‘It’s a beautiful car,’” Grace said brightly, trying to ignore the shiver running up her arm from their contact. She put her hands on the wheel and pretended to steer, then put her hand on the shift and mocked that as well, making an engine sound deep in her throat:
RRRRR . . . rrrrrr. . . .
“I can’t wait to get going! How fast does it go?”

Something between a soft whimper and a cough emerged from Declan’s throat.

Ha! Good! There’s no reason we can’t
both
be miserable
. “What do you say, shall we head straight out to Highway One?” she asked, and put her hand on the key as if to turn it.

“Let’s get the basics down first,” Declan squeaked, then cleared his throat and continued in a lower tone. “Do you understand the basic principles of how a standard transmission works, as opposed to an automatic?”

“I know you have to use the clutch to change gears,” Grace said, her hand still on the key.

“But do you know why?” Declan asked, settling back in the seat. His broad shoulders barely left enough room for her.

“Do I need to know why?” Grace answered tartly.

“I’d think you’d want to understand what it is you’ll be learning to do. You should have a concept of what’s going on in the car.”

“Declan, I don’t even understand the mechanics of how burning liquid gasoline makes the wheels turn on a car. I don’t think I’m going to benefit from a lecture on clutches and gears.”

“Nevertheless, I think you should understand.”

Grace heaved a put-upon sigh and sat back, secretly delighted by the reprieve. They could sit here all day discussing gears, if it meant delaying the actual driving lesson. “Fine. Tell me about gears.”

“Anyone who rides a bicycle already has a basic understanding of using lower gears to get moving, and for more power on hills. In a standard transmission, there is a positive connection between the motor and the transmission—aka, the gears—which is achieved by using the clutch. A clutch disk, actually. When you put your foot on the clutch pedal, you are disengaging the clutch disk and separating the motor from the transmission. I’m grossly simplifying, of course.”

“Of course.” Grace frowned at Declan. “Er. What is a transmission, anyway? You always hear about them, but no one ever says what they are.”

Declan blinked. “The transmission—again, grossly simplifying—transmits the power of the engine to the wheels of the car.”

“Oh! It’s what turns gas into motion! Well, look. I learned something.”

He narrowed his eyes, as if checking whether or not she was making fun of him.

Grace blinked innocently. Let him wonder if she was as ignorant as she appeared. She
was
that ignorant, as far as cars went, but he needn’t be sure.

“Anyway,” Declan said. “Disengaging the clutch disengages that positive connection between motor and transmission, and allows you to engage a different gear, either higher or lower. If you shift too far up or down, the motor either won’t have the power to move the gear and you’ll lug the engine, or will have too much power, and the gear will either slow the motor down, which is fine and is a technique for braking, or you’ll kill the engine. And if you don’t disengage the clutch entirely when you’re trying to shift, you’ll strip the gears, which is
not
fine and will mean serious work on your transmission.”

“Good to know.” She tried to smile but he was starting to freak her out. The last thing she wanted was to strip the gears on a $100,000 car.

“Do you know what kept car companies from developing an automatic transmission much earlier than they did?” Declan asked.

Grace made a face at him. “Is this a
trivia
question?”

“I’m trying to help you grasp and appreciate the workings of the car.”

“You sure you’re not just wasting time because you’re afraid of going out on the road with me?”

“I’m not stalling,” Declan insisted, his voice getting a little louder, making her think he truly
was
stalling. “Come on, this is interesting.”

Grace tilted her head to the side in an exaggerated “I’m listening” pose and opened her eyes wide. “Tell me, why couldn’t they develop an automatic transmission earlier?”

“Smart-ass,” he muttered.

Grace made a kissy face at him.

Declan ignored her teasing and became more pompously professorial. “The problem they had was how to keep the engine from dying while the car was stopped. Remember, in a standard transmission, disengaging the clutch disengages the motor from the transmission. So, when you’re stopped, if you disengage the clutch you can keep the motor running without transmitting power to the wheels. But without a clutch to disengage, when you’re at a stop, how do you keep the running motor from dying while it is physically engaged with a motionless gear?”

Grace thought about it for a moment, could find no answer, and then realized with surprise that she actually was curious. She’d never spared a thought for how an automatic transmission worked, but she suddenly wanted to know. “How?” she asked. She hadn’t thought she was someone who could be interested in cars. Would she start asking him questions about football next?

“In an automatic, the motor and the transmission never have a positive physical coupling.”

Grace frowned, sure she’d missed something, and also a little disturbed by the word “coupling.” It sounded sexual. “So their physical coupling is always negative? Sounds familiar.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I
meant
that there’s no input
shaft to connect with—I mean—Goddammit, you know what I meant! There’s no physical contact between motor and transmission.”

“Then how do you get the . . . car to go anywhere? But I forget. Your best skill is making things go without touching them.”

He ground his teeth. “The answer to the question is ‘fluid.’”

“Really?” Grace’s eyes went even wider. Talk about sexual connotations!

“That’s what links the motor to the transmission in an automatic,” Declan went on, his face flushing. “The motor spins the transmission fluid, which then spins the desired gear.”

“How exciting. I’m getting flustered just hearing about it.”

He muttered something under his breath, then continued. “When you’re stopped in an automatic, the brake is strong enough to hold the car in place even though the engine is running, but the engine doesn’t die because it’s not physically, positively connected to a motionless gear.”

Grace’s lips parted in an understanding unrelated to sex. “That’s why an automatic will creep forward if you take your foot off the brake! The transmission fluid is still spinning, trying to move the gear!”

“Yes.”

“So in a stick shift, the clutch must be disengaged anytime the car is stopped, or else the motionless gear will kill the engine.”

“Right. Or the car has to be in neutral, which means that no gear is engaged.”

Grace put her hands on the steering wheel and stared forward, putting the pieces together in her mind. “But—if the car is stopped and I’m trying to get it going again, how does the running motor get a stationary gear moving? I mean, you can’t just engage the clutch and connect a running engine to a stationary gear and expect it to work smoothly, can you?” Even as she asked,
she was again struck by the sexual connotations, and started to chuckle under her breath. She glanced over at Declan, and saw a look of suspicion on his face.

“The clutch will slip a little at first, as it gets the gear moving,” he explained. “Your learning how to smoothly master that moment of coupling, dear Grace, is where you and I are going to have so much fun today.”

“Now that
was
meant as a double entendre.”

“You’re hearing what you want to hear. Can’t stop thinking about sex with me, can you?”

“Dream on, big boy,” she taunted. “I already know you’re not up to the task.”

“That was your choice, not mine. If you want to sexually frustrate yourself, have at it.”

“Oh, I have no intention of leaving myself unfulfilled.”

“You think Andrew is going to meet your needs?” Declan scoffed. “Good luck. He’ll run for the hills.”

“Look who’s talking about running away! You took off like a . . . a . . . like a rabbit being chased by a coyote. You obviously can’t handle a woman who’s your equal in appetite.”

“I took off because I had to get some perspective on what the hell is going on between us.”

“I should think it was quite clear,” she lied. She didn’t know what he felt, and was only half sure of her own feelings.

“Like hell it’s clear. This is the strangest damn relationship I’ve ever been in.”

“It’s not a re—”

“I know, it’s not a relationship,” he said, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “But it’s something. There’s an attraction between us like nothing I’ve ever encountered, and yeah, it’s thrown me off balance. But that’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Grace? To throw me off balance?” he said with an edge in his
voice. He leaned closer to her, suddenly seeming twice as large in the small confines of the car.

“Why would I want that?” she asked innocently, feeling a start of both pleasure and alarm in her chest. She had affected him more than she’d thought, which delighted her, but he might sense more about her angry feelings than she’d intended. It would be much harder to crush the bastard if he knew she hated him.

“Because you want to hurt me, the same way I hurt you that first night.”

“Yes, you hurt me,” Grace said carefully. “But you also did me a double favor that night. First you showed me how useful you could be for my own sexual entertainment, and then you showed me that you weren’t the type of man whose feelings I’d have to care about. My only disappointment has been that you’ve fallen below the mark, sexually. I’d hoped for so much more.”

“Those were the terms of the game! You’d have gotten more if your pride hadn’t kept you from saying yes. Believe me, I would have been too happy to oblige.”

“Funny, I didn’t take you for the type to sit around waiting for written permission.”

“The only thing that makes a game worthwhile,” Declan ground out, “is having rules to follow.”

“And only mediocre players never learn that there’s a right time to break them. Risk and reward, Declan. But I guess you like things on the cautious side.” She saw the tightness on his face and thought he looked ready to explode. It would take just one more push toward the edge. “Andrew
looks
cautious on the outside, but underneath I’m discovering—”

Declan reached for her, sending a thrill of fear and excitement through her, but almost simultaneously Sophia’s sharp voice came from a window on the second floor. “Declan!” she barked,
making them spring apart. “Are you going to sit there all day arguing, or are you going to teach Grace to drive the car?”

Grace blushed to her hairline, wondering just how much Sophia had overheard. She looked up at her aunt and waved. Sophia rolled her eyes and disappeared into the shadows of the house. Declan seemed no less disturbed as he fumbled for his seat belt and snapped it shut. Grace adjusted the mirror, then buckled herself in as well.

Taking on an impersonal tone, Declan talked Grace through familiarization with the gears on the stick shift and disengaging the clutch. Using his hands as models for her feet on the pedals, he demonstrated how she was going to start the car and then put it into motion. “Got it?”

Grace’s anxiety, so happily forgotten while they were arguing, came back in full force. This was it. She was going to drive the friggin’ $100,000 car. She nodded, reached for the key, and turned it.

It made a quarter turn and stopped. No engine turned over. No change in the car was apparent. Grace looked at her feet, checking that they were where Declan had said to put them. She checked the gearshift. Nothing seemed out of order. She looked at Declan.