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Page 343

| Stanford were still traveling along grazing land that belonged to Ashton and Sasha. Along the horizon, beneath the glare of the sun, she could see several sheep grazing, and farther still, a sheepherder tending the flock, with a dog yapping and circling the sheep as they momentarily scattered. |

| Then she looked up at Stanford and trudged onward behind him. |

| Finally he wheeled his horse to a stop and dismounted, anchoring his wounded arm with his hand. |

| "This'll do," he growled, looking at the thick cover of eucalyptus that blocked the entrance of a cave that led underground. "No one should find us here. I only happened along and found this cave the other day. Its entrance was hidden behind brush that I cleared away." |

| Bianca placed her hands at the small of her back and groaned, then straightened her shoulders and walked past Stanford, eyeing the cave entrance warily. "Do you intend for us toto live in there?" she asked, her voice weak. She turned to Stanford, her shoulders slouching again. "Why, Stanford? Why couldn't we have just stayed at the cabin?" She shuddered. "There could be any amount of wild things running around in thatthat hole in the ground." |

| "Quit complainin'," Stanford said, securing his horse's reins on a tree limb. "Always complainin'. You're worthless, whore. Worthless." |

| "Then why couldn't you have left me at the cabin?" Bianca whined. "Or better yet, why did you bring me to the outback at all? I've only been in the way." |

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