Shared By The Billionaire Brothers (Iron Ridge #3)

Chapter 1

Josie

The road into Iron Ridge doesn’t change width, but it feels tighter all the same.

Fields give way to fences and outbuildings, then to houses that sit close enough to watch the road.

The sky narrows between rooftops. I loosen my grip on the steering wheel and then tighten it again, breath slipping out slowly through my nose.

The gravel drive is already out of sight behind me, but the farm refuses to fade with it.

The air still clings in my lungs, hay and cold dirt and that faint sweetness of old wood warmed by spring sunlight.

My chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with wanting.

I have driven past plenty of properties these last months.

They were either too small, too close to the highway, too expensive, or too broken.

This one follows me. I see runs and fenced paddocks.

I see wide doors and soft bedding. I see ribs showing through matted fur filling out again.

I see heads lifting and eyes brightening.

My fingers drum once on the steering wheel before I still them against the leather.

The house sat back from the road, white paint dulled by time, porch sagging at the corners like it had exhaled and never bothered to pull itself straight again. The barns stretched behind it, long and patient, boards slivered by weather. Nothing there was polished.

It felt honest.

My throat tightens, and I swallow against the burn.

I know what work looks like. I know what starting from almost nothing looks like.

I did not learn that in a barn, though. I learned it at a kitchen table with a laptop humming softly while the man of the house slept.

Marketing textbooks stacked beside a mug filled with coffee long gone cold.

Accounting formulas scribbled on the back of grocery lists.

Business law lectures playing through earbuds while I folded laundry that never seemed to end.

My blinker ticks too long before I notice and turn it off.

“You’re really going to do this?” His voice slips into the car with me, smooth, filled with disdain, and already done listening. I can still see the way he leaned against the marble kitchen island, surgical schedule open on his phone, barely looking up.

“What are you going to do with a degree at your age?”

I tighten my jaw and follow the curve of the road as it leads me closer to town.

I know exactly what I am going to do with it.

The farm rises in my mind again, sun catching in the warped glass of the barn windows. Wind brushing through dry grass. Space. So much space. Room for broken bodies to breathe without flinching.

And then, uninvited, comes the memory that makes heat curl low in my belly.

Dark coat. Broad shoulders. Boots planted like the land already answers to him.

Asher Ashford had walked toward me across that gravel like he had all the time in the world and every intention of using it.

His hand had closed around mine, firm and warm, his gaze steady without being pushy.

I remember the way his thumb brushed once against my knuckles before letting go, like he noticed the cold in my fingers and did not like it.

My pulse kicks, stupid and traitorous.

Men like that do not look twice at women like me. Men like that marry twenty-eight-year-olds with perfect hair and careers that look good in charity brochures.

I press my foot down a little harder on the gas.

And then there was the other brother.

Leaning against the porch post like the wood had grown there to support him. Arms folded. Expression unreadable. Eyes that did not slide away when I caught him watching me, like he had already decided I was worth studying.

Logan Ashford.

My breath catches, and I force it out through my nose, slow and steady. The air feels colder on the way in, sharper, like it might scrape something loose inside me if I let it.

Handsome. Rich. Powerful.

My pulse stutters, then picks up, thudding low and heavy. The same quick, reckless rhythm that used to show up before a bad decision. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel until the leather creaks softly under my grip.

The same ingredients.

A ghost of a laugh tries to climb up my throat, and I swallow it down. Marble countertops. Polished smiles. A hand at the small of my back steering me where I did not want to go. I know how that recipe ends.

Different men, my mind insists.

Logan’s eyes had not skimmed past me like I was in the background. They had held. Measured. Not my dress, not my age, not the lines at the corners of my mouth. Me.

My pulse stumbles, and for one reckless second, I wonder what he sees.

I shake my head once, sharply, like I can knock the thought loose.

You are here for the animals. For the land. For the business.

My grip eases, then firms again, this time steady instead of tight. A nervous flutter dances in my stomach, light and bright and nothing like dread. It feels like standing at the edge of a diving board, toes curled over the lip, knowing the water will be cold and jumping anyway.

He said I would get bored. That I would come back. That I would miss the comfort, the security, the life he built.

My mouth curves before I can stop it, a small, private smile.

I am about to sign papers that prove he was wrong.

A picture of the farm rises, sun flashing in dusty windows, wind lifting loose strands of my hair as I walked the fence line. Space enough for broken things to mend. Work that leaves dirt under my nails and a reason to sleep hard at night.

Excitement bubbles up, quick and fizzy, and I press my lips together to keep from laughing out loud in an empty car.

Let him sneer.

I press my foot a little more firmly on the gas as the town draws closer.

I am buying that farm.

Iron Ridge gathers ahead of me, brick storefronts rising where open land used to be, parked trucks lining the street. The world feels smaller here, closer, human. My shoulders square as I pass the town sign.

The farm needs work.

So do I.

But for the first time in years, the work ahead of me feels like building instead of surviving.