About Inheritance:
Rancher Ruby Barkley and her ex-husband Gabe Ramirez are competing head-to-head for the AgInnovator game show’s new one-shot award, the Ag Superhero. The winner walks away with $3.75 million per year for five years, with no accountability or need to re-earn the Superhero, unlike the Innovator’s other awards.
But issues beyond those raised by their long-ago acrimonious divorce face Ruby and Gabe. Fence cutting. Rogue biobots destructively ranging beyond programmed parameters. Physical attacks. And the realization that they may need to reunite to save their son Brandon from indentured servitude.
Then the secret shadow of Gabe’s hidden inheritance reveals itself. Will he step up to the Martiniere Legacy—and what role will Ruby accept in any future they may share?
Excerpt:
Ruby Barkley hadn’t worn this much makeup for a long time. She felt like scrunching her facial muscles to see if they could still move as she walked down the hallway from Makeup to the Green Room, but resisted the temptation. Not that the cosmetic job would as much as crack. She knew better, from wearing makeup like this during her years in the rodeo queen world. The right formulation would hold up to anything, including blizzards and driving rain. But it had been a long time since she’d done the rodeo queen thing.
Too many years wearing just moisturizer and mineral powder. Ranch work didn’t require much else, if even that. But getting reaccustomed to wearing heavy makeup was just another unpleasant necessity for recording the presentation of the 2059 AgInnovator Superhero Contest finalists. Three point seven five million dollars at stake, she reminded herself.
Ruby touched the silver locket at her neck. She’d polished it this morning until it shone, a pre-competition task that went back over forty years to her earliest junior rodeo days. When she hadn’t worn it, things had gone wrong.
A door opened and an androgynous dark-haired, almost fishbelly-pale figure wearing the dark green and blue uniform of an AgI indentured worker careened through it, crashing into Ruby. The chain holding the locket snapped and it fell to the floor before Ruby could grab it, popping open. The small picture inside fell out.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” The indentured person’s voice was flat, almost mechanically so. They knelt and picked up the locket and chain, handing it to Ruby. As their dark brown eyes met hers, they cringed away, turning their gaze to the floor. “Oh no. Ms. Barkley, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.”
“It’s all right,” Ruby said. “But can you get the picture for me, please?”
“Oh. Yes. I’m sorry, so very sorry,” the indentured whimpered as they gathered the picture between index finger and thumb and held it out to Ruby with a shaking hand. Ruby gently took it, half-smiling at the old, faded picture of Gramps and Granma Ryder. Need to reglue it when I get back to the ranch. She fit the picture back inside the locket, and it stayed in place as she checked it, then examined the chain. Ruby sighed with relief as she saw that the jump ring holding the clasp had loosened. She could repair it when she got back to her room tonight.
“It will be all right,” she said to the indentured as she slipped locket and chain into the pocket of the fringed white buckskin jacket that had been part of her Pendleton Round-Up Princess wear.
“Please don’t complain. Please,” the indentured begged.
“Why would I? It was an accident, and it’s fixable.”
The indentured bowed low, almost touching their head to their knees before straightening up. “I thank you, Ms. Barkley. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” They backed away from Ruby until they reached the next door, and ducked inside.
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About Joyce Reynolds-Ward:
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