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Page 352

| pitiful creatures need more attention than I do." |

| Sasha leaned back inside the house and grabbed Ashton's hat from a peg on the wall. On tiptoe, she plopped it on his head, then gave him a playful smack on his rear. "There," she said, clasping her hands together behind her. "Go and tell Crispin I said hello and to stop in tonight for a cup of tea. It would be a good time to tell him our good news." |

| "He'll be happy to hear it," Ashton said, rushing on down the steps. "He'll be like a second daddy to our child." |

| "He can be our child's godfather, if you like," Sasha said, waving at Crispin in the distance as he rode up to the barn on his horse. |

| Ashton turned and gave Sasha an endearing look, then went to saddle his horse. Sasha watched him until he was riding away into the sunburnt country that was as dry as a sunstruck bone. She was afraid of what he might find while traveling across their pastureland. In this intense heat, most of the lambs born between dawn and late afternoon would not survive their first day. Too many had died this past week even to count. |

| Squinting into the sun dazzle and peering through the haze of dust, Sasha became aware of someone approaching in a covered wagon. Wanting to remain in the shade of the porch, she waited for the wagon to come to her. When it came to a shuddering halt, its two heat-exhausted horses clammy with sweat, their heads bowed, Sasha still remained on the porch. The driver gave her a sense of foreboding in his pitch-black suit and wiry gray hair tangled and twisted around his gaunt, narrow face. His gray eyes seemed pitiless as he looked up at |

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