Heart of an Outlaw *First in the Crane Gang series*

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-One

Jebidiah and Maria were both sleeping soundly. Her upon the cot and him curled up beside Gill. The men's bodies were a tangled pile of arms and legs, holding desperately onto each other. They weren't making any attempt to hide that they were together—it didn't matter anymore what anyone might think, say or do.

Gill smoothed a bit of Jebidiah's greasy blond hair from his face—it really was getting too long—and pressed a tender to kiss to the man's brow. Jebidiah moaned a bit and shifted in his sleep to pull Gill closer but he didn't wake.

He was exhausted. Gilliam would never tell a single soul but Jeb had cried himself to sleep after seeing his family's belongings bloody and tossed at his feet.

Gill turned his gaze to those stained and tattered signs of loss and had to wonder if it meant everyone they loved and cared for was dead. If Jane was dead then Pete had to be because that gap-toothed red-haired Casanova had had one trait stronger and more prominent than the rest—loyalty.

And if Wyatt was dead, that had to mean they'd gotten Craig as well. Craig wouldn't have abandoned his best friend.

Gill would have cried if he'd been able but he was a broken man—numb to everything.

Regardless of what Jeb said, this was entirely Gill's fault. If he'd simply left the gang long ago and not selfishly stayed around thinking he could have a life with Jeb. Because of that, every single person he loved or cared about was either dead or going to die.

The lamp on the wall, their only source of light in this dungeon of a cell, was beginning to flicker. The kerosene had almost run out. Gill wondered why they'd been placed in this cell. It was old and the Rangers hadn't used this cell for prisoners in close to a decade. The mold was thick on the floor and walls, the air was so musty it was hard to breathe and there was no source of outside light.

It had probably been Major Winfield's idea. That son of a cow sucking goat. Eventually that jackass would get what was coming to him. Gill only wished he was able to be the one to give it to him.

Damnation. Gill was thinking too much. He gazed over at his mama. SO much time he'd wasted. The woman had just come back into his life and now she was going to die because of him. Gill's stomach rolled. Maybe he could talk to the Governor. Maybe he convince the man not to kill his mama.

Gill had never actually meant the Governor in person. The few times he'd come to the base, Captain J.T. Morgan had hidden Gill away—of course he hadn't actually worded it that way but Gill had known enough to know that's exactly what it had been. But maybe, just maybe, the Governor was a decent man who wouldn't want to see an aging woman hanged.

"Go to sleep, Gilliam," Jeb's honey voice urged, raspy and heavy with emotion and fatigue.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Gilliam replied resting his head and staring into Jeb's green eyes. Eyes that Gill had hoped to spend the next fifty years looking into.

A smile curved Jeb's firm lips. "I could smell the smoke coming from your ears." The smile faded. "Please try to rest. I don't want to talk about it all, I just want to hold you and feel the smallest bit of peace for a while."

Gill nodded and held Jeb tighter.

They'd be dying soon.

Sometimes life was nothing but cruel.

***

The terrible clang of metal slamming against metal had Jebidiah instantly waking and leaping to his feet. His hand was at his hip before he remembered exactly where he was and that he had no weapon to pull.