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Page 342

| mounted one if she had been. She feared too much for her unborn child. She was too near to the birthing date. Since accompanying Stanford to the outback, she had experienced enough hardships to last a lifetimeand so many that had threatened her and her child. |

| If only she could last just a little while longer. . . . |

| Finding it hard to place one foot after another for even one more step along the dry, parched ground, Bianca faltered in her steps, then stopped. "Stanford," she cried, the sun beating down on her as if her head were in an oven. "Please go no farther. I . . . don't . . . know if I can. . . ." |

| Stanford wiped beads of perspiration from his brow. He cast Bianca a glaring look over his shoulder. "We've not traveled even a mile and you are complaining?" he growled. His eyes narrowed as he looked down at her stomach and the way she was holding onto it. "If not for that load you are carrying in front of you, you'd have no cause to complain." He shook his head with disgust. "All those years of bedding up with men and you let yourself get pregnant?" |

| "Bianca is glad that you are not the father," she blurted out, tears streaming down her face as she met his steady stare with her own. "I did not even know you when I became with child. I am blessed, at least, because of that. I do not have to have nightmares of my child turning out to be like you." |

| Stanford glared down at her a moment longer, then looked away from her and flicked his horse's reins. "Come along, whore," he grumbled. "We've only a little way to go." |

| Bianca looked to her left, realizing that she and |

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