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Page 282

| Ashton shook his head sorrowfully, then shrugged. "Have it your way," he grumbled. He gave her a stern look. "Don't ever say I didn't warn you." |

| Sasha nodded, trying not to show her true fear to Ashton. When he turned away from her and raised his rifle in the air as a warning to the men who awaited his command, she closed her eyes and sucked in a wild breath. Never had she been as afraid, or as unsure of herself, as now. How quickly things in life changed! She recalled how abruptly her parents had been taken from her. She remembered, too, how cruelly Woodrow Rutherford had abandoned her. |

| And now, when everything seemed to be falling into place for her, to have some meaning, would it all fall apart again? |

| Would she even live to know? |

| It was as though a dark cloud was hovering over her, at any moment ready to enclose her in its black depths and smother her. |

| "Let's go!" Ashton shouted, thrusting his heels into the flanks of his horse. He leaned low over his horse's flying mane, cursing himself over and over again that he had not tied Sasha to a tree to keep her from being involved in this fracas. He did not need her there to distract him! What had he been thinking when he had allowed it? Even now she was somewhere behind him on her horse. If he took the time to check on her, it was time taken away from keeping his wits about him for the battle ahead. He knew Ajax well enough to know that at this point in their relationship, there would be no talkingonly shooting! |

| Sasha clutched her rifle as she led her horse into a |

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