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Page 369

| her teeth as another pain tightened her abdomen. "How can yoube so cruel?" |

| "How?" Stanford gloated. "Just watch me." He took a cautious step outside, feeling the heat of the ash penetrating through the soles of his shoes. Shielding his eyes with his hands, he looked into the distance. He must make his move now and prepare to watch for Ashton. If he was wrongif Ashton never intended to go for the chest at allthen everything that Stanford had gone through would be for naught. |

| But if Ashton did leave his sheep station and did head in the direction away from Melbourne, then Stanford had been the wisest of them both. |

| Kicking the hot ash aside, Stanford began moving beneath scorched trees and through smoke rising up from the burned debris that covered the ground. He would position himself close enough to Ashton's sheep station so that he could see all the comings and goings. |

| With sheer will and hate guiding her, Bianca rose up on an elbow and peered at the cave entrance. Pushing herself up from the ground, she stumbled out of the cave and moved lethargically over the ash-strewn ground, her gaze never leaving Stanford as he walked ahead of her, unaware that he was being followed. Somehow she would manage to get close enough to kill him. She must! He . . . must . . . be killed! |

| Her hand trembled as she lifted her skirt. Fighting off nausea as fresh pain gripped her, she removed the knife from where she had tied it at her right thigh. |

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