Epilogue #2
But she'd found something else, too. Something she hadn't known she was looking for until a prospect with steady eyes and rough hands walked into her shop and looked at her like she was worth protecting.
Some things were worth more than money.
Traditions passed down through generations. Crafts that connected people to their history. A love that grew in impossible places and refused to die no matter what tried to kill it.
They both knew that now.
The mountains rose around them, ancient and patient, the same peaks that had sheltered generations of people who'd built lives in their shadows. Nadine held her husband tight and watched the road unspool ahead of them, leading toward a future she couldn't wait to meet.
Home.
She was finally, completely home.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed PITFALL’S OBSESSION. If so, I’d love to hear about it, and so would everyone else! If you’d like to leave a review, here is a link to the amazon page:
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Continue reading for a sneak peek for STILL’S SALVATION, Ozark Ridgerunners MC #1, the explosive new MC Romance series from Josie Davidson
SNEAK PEEK: STILL’S SALVATION
Chapter One
The marina owner's hands shook as he counted out the bills, sweat rolling down his temples despite the October breeze coming off Bagnell Dam.
Still watched from twenty feet back, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, reading the man the way his grandfather had taught him to read a copper pot—looking for the moment things were about to boil over.
Forty-three years in Ozark country had taught him to wait.
Wait and watch, because rushing anything worth doing would ruin it every time.
"That's light." Cottonmouth's voice cut through the afternoon air like a blade across a whetstone. The Sergeant at Arms stepped closer to the marina owner, the pit viper inked across his throat seeming to coil tighter with his irritation. "You're two hundred short, Hendricks."
"I swear, that's everything from the register—"
"Then open the safe."
Limestone shifted his weight, quarry-forged shoulders rolling beneath his cut. The VP's jaw could've been carved from the bluffs themselves, and right now it was set hard enough to crack stone. "Cottonmouth asked you a question."
The marina owner—Hendricks, ran a bait shop and boat rental operation that saw plenty of cash traffic from lake tourists—darted his gaze between the three Ridgerunners like a rabbit calculating its odds against a pack of coyotes.
Bad odds. The kind of odds that got men buried in back country that didn't show up on any map.
Still had seen this dance a hundred times. Man gets comfortable. Thinks the protection payments are optional. Thinks the club won't notice a few hundred skimmed here, a few hundred there. Thinks wrong.
"I can get the rest by Friday—"
"You said that last month." Cottonmouth's hand dropped to his belt, fingers brushing the knife sheath. "Still? Your call."
Every eye turned to Still.
He let the silence stretch. Let Hendricks sweat through his polo shirt and remember exactly who owned this territory.
The quiet wasn't kindness—it was pressure, building slow and steady like steam in a still pot.
His grandfather had taught him that too, before the feds came and burned everything the Hutchins family had built.
Before Earl watched a proud man break down and never quite stand straight again.
Still crossed the gravel lot in four unhurried strides, his boots crunching against the limestone chips. He stopped close enough to smell the fear rolling off Hendricks in waves.
"Your daddy ran this marina," Still said, voice low. "Paid on time for nineteen years. Never short. Never late."
Hendricks swallowed hard. "Times are different now—"
"Times are exactly the same." The kind of soft tone that made men lean in to hear—and wish they hadn't.
"You got tourists coming through spending money on bait and beer and boat gas.
You got protection that keeps the tweakers from breaking into your register and the rivals from burning your dock. That protection costs what it costs."
"I know, but—"
"I'm not finished."
Hendricks shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked.
"Your daddy understood something you forgot," Still continued.
"The Ridgerunners don't take payments because we need your money.
We take payments because it's the tax for operating in country we protect.
You skip that tax, you're telling every other business owner on this lake that they can skip it too. You understand what happens then?"
"I—yes."
"Then you understand why Cottonmouth wants to break something.
" Still tilted his head, studying the man like he was deciding whether a batch of mash was worth saving or needed to be dumped.
"I'm going to give you one chance to make this right.
Not because you deserve it. Because your daddy was a man who kept his word, and I'm hoping some of that rubbed off. "
Hendricks nodded frantically. "The safe. I'll get the rest from the safe."
"You'll get all of it from the safe. This month and next month, paid in advance." Still held the man's gaze until Hendricks looked away. "The next time I ride out here, I expect a cold beer and a handshake. Not excuses. We clear?"
"Clear. Yes. Absolutely clear."
Still stepped back, giving Hendricks room to stumble toward the office. Cottonmouth fell into step beside him, cold eyes tracking the marina owner's retreat.
"Should've let me break his hand," Cottonmouth muttered. "Send a message."
"Message is sent." Still pulled a cigarette from his cut and lit it, watching the smoke curl toward the dam. "He'll pay double and tell everyone he knows how reasonable we were. Fear spreads faster when you give a man time to think about what almost happened."
Limestone grunted his agreement. "Always was your play. Let things simmer."
"Simmering is the only play that doesn't get us a war we don't need." Still took a long drag, tasting tobacco and lake air. "We got enough problems without making new ones over two hundred dollars."
The office door banged open and Hendricks hurried back with a bank envelope, thrust it toward Cottonmouth like it was burning his fingers. The Sergeant at Arms counted it twice, then nodded.
"We're square. For now."
Still mounted his bike without another word, the Harley's engine turning over with a rumble that echoed off the water.
Limestone and Cottonmouth fell into formation—Limestone at his left flank, Cottonmouth bringing up the rear.
The way they'd ridden a thousand times through lake roads and back country.
They swept out of the marina lot and onto the winding highway that traced the shoreline toward Osage Beach.
Lake of the Ozarks stretched out to their right, afternoon sun catching the water in flashes of gold and green.
Tourists in rental boats puttered across the coves, oblivious to the three men in leather cuts who kept the real trouble away from their vacation paradise.
Still leaned into the curves, letting the bike do what it was built for.
These roads were in his blood—every switchback, every blind corner, every stretch where the trees pressed close and the asphalt got rough.
Three generations of Hutchins had run these hills, first with jugs of white lightning strapped to flatbeds, now with chrome and patch and brotherhood.
The feds had taken the stills. They'd never take the territory.
His phone buzzed against his chest. Still ignored it until they reached the pullout at Point 14, a scenic overlook where he'd scattered his grandfather's ashes six years back. He killed the engine and checked the screen.
Church tonight. 8pm. Spillway picked up some chatter about new players near the 76 corridor.
Current, checking in from the compound. The Road Captain had ears everywhere on these highways—knew every cop shift change, every traffic pattern, every trouble spot between Bagnell Dam and Branson.
Still typed back: Handled Hendricks. Riding in after a stop.
He pocketed the phone and swung his leg back over the bike. Limestone had lit his own cigarette, standing at the overlook's edge watching a barge crawl across the distant water.
"Headed to the compound?" the VP asked.
"Making a stop first." Still checked his watch. Quarter past four. "Smoke & Hickory. Tuesday brisket."
Cottonmouth snorted. "That the third Tuesday in a row?"
"Fourth."
"Uh-huh." Cottonmouth's scarred face split into something that wasn't quite a smile. "The brisket that good?"
"Best in the Ozarks."
"Sure it is." Limestone ground out his cigarette under his boot heel. "We'll see you at church. Try not to get sauce on your cut."
Still didn't dignify that with a response. He fired up the Harley and peeled out of the overlook, leaving his brothers' laughter behind him on the wind.
The ride to Smoke & Hickory took twenty-three minutes on back roads, winding through hill country where the cell service dropped to nothing and the only signs of life were rusted mailboxes and the occasional deer frozen at the treeline.
Still knew these roads the way he knew his own hands—every pothole, every patch of gravel, every spot where the county had given up on maintenance and let the forest start reclaiming the asphalt.