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Page 72

| began falling where Ashton was standing. |

| Sasha scurried from beneath the dray and stumbled and slid in the mud as she tried to reach Ashton to warn him. "Ashton!" she screamed, her feet suddenly slipping from beneath her. She landed with a loud splat in the mud. |

| "The tree!" she screamed. "Ashton!" |

| The tree landed several yards from Ashton, but although he survived the tree, a horse did not. Sasha felt a sickness spiraling through her as she watched the horse writhe on its side, smashed by the fallen tree. |

| Ashton's horse neighed and whinnied, jerking at the reins, its dark eyes wild. Ashton held the animal firmly around its neck, talking soothingly into its ear, all the while looking at the horse that was filled with misery. |

| "Well? Don't just everyone stand around gawking! Shoot the horse!" Ashton shouted to his men. "Put the animal out of its misery!" |

| Sasha turned her eyes away and winced as a shot rang out. She looked slowly Ashton's way again, then at the slain horse, knowing that it could have been Ashton if the tree had fallen a few feet more to the side than it had. |

| Pushing herself up from the mud, almost blinded now by the driving rain, Sasha fought against the wind and finally managed to get to Ashton. She helped him hold his horse steady on the opposite side from where Ashton stood bracing himself in the wind and rain. |

| "Oh, Ashton!" Sasha cried. "That could have been you!" |

| "Never in a hundred years!" Ashton tried to |

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