Float's Focus (Ozark Ridgerunners MC #17)

Chapter 1

The Current River ran cold and dark at five a.m., mist rising off the water like the hills were breathing. Float dipped his paddle and pulled, the canoe cutting through fog so thick he navigated by memory and the sound of water against limestone.

He'd run this stretch a thousand times before everything went to hell. Back when his name was on a business license instead of a prospect cut. Back when he thought hard work meant something and partners didn't steal everything while you were too busy hustling to notice.

The put-in point materialized through the fog—a gravel bar where the current slowed and the bank dropped low enough to load. A figure waited in the tree line, cigarette ember glowing orange in the gray dawn.

Float guided the canoe to shore and stepped into ankle-deep water cold enough to make his bones ache. He didn't flinch. Prospects didn't flinch.

"You're early." The contact was a wiry man in his fifties, face weathered by decades of Ozark sun and bad decisions. He had two duffel bags at his feet.

"River doesn't wait." Float grabbed the bow and hauled the canoe onto the gravel. "Neither does the club."

The man grunted and tossed the first bag. Float caught it, felt the weight—right where it should be. He stowed it in the center of the canoe, then caught the second bag and did the same.

"Tell Still the next shipment's two weeks out. And tell him Garner's getting nervous about the sheriff sniffing around the 86 corridor."

Float memorized both pieces of information because that's what prospects did. They listened, they remembered, and they delivered—product, messages, whatever the club needed moved.

"Anything else?"

The contact shook his head and ground out his cigarette. "Just get that upstream before the sun burns off this fog. Don't need fishermen asking questions."

Float was already pushing the canoe back into the current. "Never do."

Two hours against the river.

His shoulders burned. His forearms screamed. The paddle bit into water that fought him every stroke, the Current living up to its name with a grudge.

Float didn't stop.

This was the work that kept him sane. The work that proved he could carry weight without dropping it, handle responsibility without someone stealing it out from under him.

Every stroke upstream was a middle finger to the partner who'd cleaned out the business account while Float was running float trips, too busy working to watch his own back.

The fog lifted as the sun crept over the bluffs, turning the river from gray to green. Limestone cliffs rose on both sides, thick with cedar and oak. A great blue heron lifted off from a gravel bar, wings beating slow and heavy.

Float kept his eyes on the water, reading the current the way other men read road signs. He knew where the channels ran deep, where the shoals would scrape a hull, where the eddies could trap a boat if you let them. Six years of running canoe rentals had carved the river into his bones.

The club had taken that knowledge and put it to work.

Back-water routes the sheriff couldn't patrol.

Delivery points that only existed if you knew where to look.

Float had traded a failed business for a brotherhood that didn't give a damn about embezzlement or debt—they cared about what you could do, and he could do this.

The drop point appeared around a bend: an old fishing cabin half-hidden by willows, dock listing but stable. A Ridgerunner truck sat in the gravel clearing above.

Float guided the canoe to the dock and tied off. Cottonmouth was already walking down the bank, his snake-mean frame casting a long shadow in the morning light.

"You look like hell," Cottonmouth observed, arms crossed over his cut.

"Two hours upstream." Float hauled the first duffel out of the canoe. "River's running high from the rain last week."

"Should've used the motor."

"Motor leaves a wake. Wake draws eyes." Float handed off the bag and reached for the second. "This time of morning, fishermen are already on the water. A canoe's just scenery."

Cottonmouth's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted—approval, maybe, or at least the absence of disapproval. The Sergeant at Arms didn't hand out compliments, but he noticed when prospects used their heads.

"Load's complete," Float said. "Contact says next shipment's two weeks out. Also says Garner's nervous about sheriff activity on the 86 corridor."

Cottonmouth took the second bag. "Garner's always nervous. Man sweats through three shirts a day."

"Just passing the message."

"I know." Cottonmouth jerked his chin toward the truck. "Help me load these. Still wants a full count before noon."

They carried the duffels up the bank in silence. The morning was warming up, humidity settling over the hollow like a wet blanket. Float's shirt stuck to his back where the river hadn't already soaked it.

The truck bed was covered with a tarp. Cottonmouth pulled it back to reveal two more duffels already stacked.

"Multiple pickups?" Float asked.

"Current handled the other route last night. You're the water specialist, but he's got some river sense." Cottonmouth secured the new bags. "Speaking of water routes—we've got a problem at one of the rental properties."

Float waited. Prospects didn't ask questions unless questions were invited.

"Found cameras in the cabin off Brush Creek. Someone's been watching our meets." Cottonmouth's voice went flat and cold. "Not law enforcement equipment. Private installation. Professional job."

"How long were they watching?"

"Don't know yet. Proof's pulling the hardware apart to trace the source." Cottonmouth pulled the tarp back over the load. "Club's got enemies. Some we know about. Some we don't. This one's new."

Float filed the information the way he filed everything—complete and ready for retrieval when the club needed it. Surveillance cameras in a rental property. Private operation. Professional work. Somebody watching the Ridgerunners who wasn't law enforcement.

"What do you need from me?" he asked.

Cottonmouth's lips twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "Right now? Get the delivery receipt from this load to Proof at the armory. He's tracking all the incoming product."

"Done."

"Then get some food and some sleep. You look like the river dragged you upstream by your teeth."

Float didn't argue. Two hours of paddling against current had left his arms feeling like they were filled with wet sand, and he hadn't eaten since yesterday's dinner.

But he'd made the pickup. Delivered the load. Passed along the message. Completed every task the club had given him without complaint or excuse.

The prospect cut on his back meant he had something to prove. Every day, every job, every mile of river or road—he was building a reputation that couldn't be stolen. A place in the brotherhood that no partner could embezzle out from under him.

The compound sprawled across a private cove like it had grown there, clubhouse rising from a converted fishing lodge with a dock stretching into the water and cabins scattered through the trees.

Float had lived here for eight months, and he still caught himself staring at it sometimes—this place that had taken him in when everything else fell apart.

He parked his bike near the garage and walked to the armory, a concrete bunker built into the hillside behind the main lodge. Proof was inside, hunched over a workbench covered with electronics and weapons in various states of assembly.

"Delivery complete." Float pulled the folded receipt from his cut and set it on the bench. "Two duffels from the Current River put-in. Contact confirmed two weeks to next shipment."

Proof glanced at the receipt, then at Float. The Armorer had chemical burns mapping his forearms and the steady hands of a man who tested everything twice. "Cottonmouth mentioned the cameras?"

"Said you're tracing the source."

"Trying." Proof picked up a small circuit board from the debris on his bench. "Whoever installed these knew what they were doing. Custom hardware, no manufacturer marks. The kind of setup that costs real money."

"Not law enforcement?"

"Too clean. Feds use budget equipment with serial numbers they think they've scratched off." Proof turned the circuit board over in his scarred fingers. "This is private money. Somebody with resources and patience."

Float didn't like the sound of that. Enemies with resources meant enemies who could wait. Enemies who planned.

"Need anything from me?"

Proof shook his head. "Just keep your eyes open. Whoever set this up is watching our properties. Might be watching our people too."

Float nodded and left the armory, the weight of the information settling into his bones alongside the river exhaustion. Someone was watching the club. Someone with money and professional skills and the patience to install surveillance in rental properties the Ridgerunners used for meets.

He walked to his cabin—a small structure at the edge of the compound, close to the water—and stripped off his wet clothes. The shower ran hot enough to ease the ache in his shoulders, and he stood under the spray until the river cold finally left his bones.

Food. Sleep. Then whatever the club needed next.

That was the prospect life. That was the path to a patch and a permanent place in the brotherhood. Float had lost everything once because he trusted the wrong person and worked too hard to watch his own back.

He wouldn't make that mistake again.

The club had given him a second chance. A way to pay debts that weren't his. A brotherhood that judged a man by what he delivered, not what someone else stole from him.

Float dried off, pulled on clean clothes, and headed for the main lodge. His stomach was growling and the kitchen would have coffee and whatever the old ladies had cooked for the morning shift.

Outside, the compound was waking up—brothers moving between buildings, the sound of tools from the garage, bikes gleaming in the morning sun. Lake fog still clung to the cove, burning off slow as the day heated up.

Somewhere out there, cameras were watching.

Float filed that knowledge and kept walking.

Prospects didn't solve problems. They delivered information to the men who did.

But he'd keep his eyes open. Watch for anything that didn't fit. Because somebody was interested in the Ridgerunners, and interest like that never led anywhere good.