Page 4 of The Billion Heirs Boxed Set

“If it makes you feel any better, your brothers—”

“Half brothers.”

“—aren’t any happier. However, I was on land when I shared the news with them.”

The cove where I will land appears in the distance. I adjust the flaps to begin our descent.

“We’ll be on the ground soon, Shankle.”

Really soon since I decide to come in hot. If I’m headed to Montana, I might as well have a little fun before I’m grounded. And landlocked. And stuck with two men who share tainted blood.

“We’re the billion heirs,” I mutter.

Only a deadbeat—emphasis on dead—father would ruin it all.

2

CARLY

One month later…

There’s something soothing about grooming a horse. Something almost zen.

My father taught me how to do it when I was six years old. He wouldn’t let me learn to ride until I could take care of the animal first. I hated him for it, of course. At that age, I didn’t want to be bothered with such a mundane task. I wanted to be on horseback, riding wild and free, not brushing a horse’s hair.

But that attitude didn’t last. Grooming became a ritual for me—time getting to know the animal, time reflecting on our journey together.

Time contemplating something larger than myself.

It was my escape, and it’s where I went in my head while I was held on the island.

My safe place.

“You’re a gorgeous girl,” I say to Ivory, a beautiful cremello quarter horse, as I grab the hoof pick. The tangy scents of the stable are familiar. Oddly comforting.

I’ve never seen a cremello before—not in real life, I mean. I saw all the colors in my equine textbook back in vet school. This mare has a creamy pale coat, pink skin, and blue eyes. Her mane and tale are a shade lighter than the rest of her. I run my hand down her flank, her hair soft and her body warm.

She’s a gentle soul. One of my professors at school said blue-eyed horses were long thought to be wilder than their brown-eyed counterparts. As I work on Ivory, I can’t help but wonder how that myth arose. Her temperament is more composed than any other horse I’ve known. I’m a stranger to her, yet she’s giving me no trouble at all as I run my hand down her left foreleg.

“Up,” I say softly.

Her ear twitches and she lifts her foot. Excellent. No rocks. A little dirt, which I brush away with the pick. Her hoof looks healthy. She’s been well cared for.

But of course she has. Her life is on the Bridger Ranch, where a veterinarian is on staff.

I’m merely an assistant. I didn’t get to finish my first year of vet school…but I can’t go there in my mind. Not on my first day at the ranch.

I have a job. A job working with animals I love. I smile to myself.

My first job since my return to Bayfield, Montana.

I gently place Ivory’s hoof back on the stable floor and move to the next one, reliving the conversation with my parents this morning.

“I got a job. I start today.”

My mother’s eyes go wide, and she continues pouring orange juice into my glass until—

“Mom, stop!”