Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(105)

Gray stared at him for a moment and swallowed hard. “I knew you were hurting. Don’t you know it was killing me, to just stand by and watch grief eat you alive? There wasn’t anything I could do, save securing our future, providing a home. Perhaps I went about it all in the wrong way, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“I know.” Joss put a hand to his face. “I know.”

“Do you?” Gray waited until his brother looked up. “Joss—” His voice cracked, and he tried again. “No matter how old we get, you’re still my little brother. While there’s breath in my body, I can’t allow you to hang. Don’t ask it of me.”

“But it’s all right for you to ask it of me? You’re not the only one capable of brotherly affection, you know.” Joss crossed the cell and stood before Gray. “It’s not your fault, what ever happens. You do understand that?” He put a hand on Gray’s shoulder. “I know you’ve always tried to do your best by me, in your own insufferable, arrogant way. You’ve been a decent brother, Gray. And a damn good friend.”

Gray swore. He looked to the side, then back at his brother. “Fair warning, Joss. If you don’t take your hand off me … I will have to hug you.”

Joss laughed. “After that speech, I’d be damn disappointed if you didn’t.”

Gray grabbed his brother in a rough embrace. Joss thumped him on the back as he hugged him close.

“What’s all this talk about dying, anyway?” Joss asked, pulling away with moist eyes and a sly smile. “We’ve cheated death before. I reckon we’ve one more life in us yet. Maybe Wilson will come up with something. Or Bel will work a miracle.”

“Maybe.” Gray heaved a rough sigh and slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, legs outstretched.

Joss joined him. “I mean it, Gray. No more talk of hanging or noble sacrifice.”

Very well, Gray thought. I won’t talk about it.

“Allow yourself a moment of optimism. It’s not just me and Bel and Jacob you’ve got to live for, you know. There’s a beautiful miss out there somewhere who’d be heartbroken to see you hanged.”

“There are beautiful women all over the world who’ll be heartbroken to see me hanged,” Gray said dryly. “But the only one I care about is gone.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, she’s gone all right. Do you know, she claimed to love me. What a fool I was, to believe it.”

“Is it so hard to believe?” Joss nudged Gray’s arm. “It’s not as though she’s the only one.”

“More fool you,” Gray grumbled. He let his head fall back against the stone wall and stared up at the cell’s single window. Slices of bright sky winked at him from behind the rusted iron bars. It hurt his eyes to look at, but the discomfort was preferable to darkness. “To fall in love now, of all times… after I’ve successfully avoided it all my life.”

“Avoided it? To the contrary, I think you’ve conducted a rather thorough search of the globe for it.”

Gray thought on this for a minute. Damn, he hated it when Joss was right. It was just as well she’d left. He knew what he had to do today; it would only have been harder, had she stayed. Still, as always, he regretted what he’d left undone. Unsaid.

“I never told her I loved her. What an ass I am. No wonder she left. I mean, I told her in a dozen different ways, but I never said the words.”

“Are they so hard to say?”

“Yes, but … I don’t know. They shouldn’t be.” Gray shook his head. “Do you know, that fifteen-year-old boy had the courage to say in front of the whole crew what I couldn’t bring myself to whisper in the dark? He’ll make a fine officer someday, Davy Linnet. Got bigger stones than either of us, I’d wager.”

Joss snorted. “Speak for yourself.”

Laughter erupted in Gray’s chest. God, he was going to miss Joss. He hoped his brother could forgive him one day, for betraying his trust this last time.

“Joss.” Gray swallowed the lump rising in his throat. “I love you. What ever happens, I want you to know that.”

Joss propped an elbow on Gray’s shoulder. “It’s nice to hear it. But I knew that already—never had a doubt in my mind, actually. I’d imagine she knows you love her, too. You’ll have a chance to say the words.”

Gray rubbed his temples. What could he say? He had but a few days left in this world, and no hope of seeing her in the next. But he had to keep up the illusion of optimism, for Joss’s sake. “Supposing I did find her? What if I tell her I love her, and she still walks away?”

“I don’t know what to tell you there. There aren’t any guarantees in love. I know as well as anyone how fleeting it can be.”

Gray winced, knowing that Joss referred to Mara.

Joss fell silent for a moment, then continued in a low voice, “You may not be able to hold on to her forever. But I don’t think you’ll regret trying. I don’t.”

Gray felt tears burning at the corners of his eyes. He sniffed and looked away quickly, searching his mind for something witty and irreverent to say. He was saved the effort when Joss spoke again.

“That girl loves you, Gray. We’re going to get out of this, and when we do