Homefront Hero (6 page)

“Leanne!” Ida was off her chair, facing Leanne, waving her hands as if flagging down a battleship. “Where’d you go, honey? Y’all are frowning like we’re at a funeral. It’s just hair.”

Leanne slapped her notebook shut. “Yes, I want you to do my hair up nice. And would you lend me that bright yellow dress you have? The one with the buttons on the cuffs?”

Ida swung back on one hip, eyes wide. “Not fading into the background tomorrow, are we?”

“Absolutely not. The method might be a bit…unorthodox, but the cause is important. No one’s going to push me and all the other dedicated knitters out of the picture tomorrow. Not while I’m around. There’s more to what we’re doing than Captain John Gallows, and the American people need to know that.”

Ida stood up, saluted and winked. “Yes, ma’am!”

Chapter Eight

J
ohn’s leg was screaming at him from inside perfectly pressed trousers. His shirt collar tightened around his neck like a starchy, menacing hand. At least in war, no one gave a fig what a man looked like or how he stood, as long as he got where he needed to be. Here, he was waging a battle with the barbed wire under his skin while smirking and making small talk with a dozen people who had no idea what torture it was to bend his right leg at a natural angle. And hold it for the endless seconds it took to get the right image. They’d been at it for hours, and already he was coming to hate the funny accordion-faced camera as much as he loathed the pointed metal knitting needles. People said the camera loved him, but he did not return the affection.

“You were right,” Leanne remarked after the first handful of photos. “It would have been dreadfully hard to learn under these conditions.” A man in a plaid vest had repositioned her hands dozens of times, and even John could hear the frustration in Leanne’s words. Obviously the wonder born of buzzing activity and bright lights had died down quickly for her, made worse by the tactless positioning of photographers who made it very clear they weren’t too worried about getting her in the shot.

Which was a waste, for she looked beautiful today. John could tell she’d taken extra care with her hair and dress. “You should wear that color more often,” he ventured when one assistant all but pushed her out of the way. The bright yellow made the peach of her skin fairly glow. He yanked his hat back from some apple-cheeked boy charged with brushing nonexistent lint from it. “Clark, I want Miss Sample in the next shot.”

Clark Summers looked up from his camera with a dubiously raised eyebrow. “Do you now?” His tone implied that what Captain Gallows wanted didn’t much matter at the moment.

Someone fired off one of those flash contraptions, making Leanne jump. The photographer rolled his eyes as if he considered working with such innocents penance for some earlier photographic sin.

“I do,” John replied. He poured so much Gallows command into those two words that the hat boy sat down in deference. “Surely you don’t plan to slap me on some magazine cover without a pretty girl by my side. I’m supposed to recruit young lads to the cause, aren’t I? You don’t expect me to do that without a lovely lady on hand to admire my efforts?”

John regretted those last words the minute he’d said them, but his leg was making it hard to think well. Miss Sample’s spine shot straight and the needles dropped to her lap. Worse yet, her foot began tapping. Nothing good ever came out of a lady tapping her foot, ever. The fire he had suspected was lurking under all that peaches-and-cream was sneaking out under all this scrutiny. He liked that, although John was convinced that amusement could well be the death of him. If his leg didn’t kill him first.

He made up his mind, then and there, to ensure he saw Leanne Sample someplace much closer to his own territory. Someplace where he held most of the cards. He smiled as it came to him just where that was.

* * *

The captain had nerve, she’d give him that much.

It wasn’t that she minded being pulled out of the standard nurse’s rotation—those shifts could be dreary, indeed—it was that she hadn’t been given a choice at all. The smug grin on John Gallows’s face as she signed the clipboard admitting her to the reconstruction gymnasium pressed down on her, glossy and manipulative. Clearly he thought he’d done her some kind of favor. While other nurses might fawn over the chance to work so closely with such “a hero,” Gallows’s manipulative nature canceled out any gratitude Leanne could muster.

She walked straight toward him, hoping her annoyance showed as she held his gaze. “You press your advantage with entirely too much ease, Captain Gallows.”

He sat lengthwise on a bench, slowly hoisting a small weighted bag on his ankle. He was pretending it took no effort. “Not at all. We’re allowed to request specific attendants. I requested you.”

Leanne stood over him crossing her arms over her chest. “I fear I’m not sufficiently qualified to supervise your exercises.” She stopped short of saying “given the extent of your injuries” because she knew that would bother him. Then again, perhaps he deserved to be bothered after the way he’d behaved at their photographic session yesterday.

John leaned back on the bench, the white of his exercise shirt stretching across his chest. “Nonsense. You’d only be taking temperatures and walking lads out on the lawn anyway. I know you like a challenge.” It really was a crime what white did for the man’s eyes.

“You do not know me at all, Captain. If you did, you would know I’m not one to play favorites. Or be played as one.” She wouldn’t give him one inch of the satisfaction of thinking that she’d been even the smallest bit flattered by his special request of her—she was rather ashamed of it herself. She wasn’t blind to the way women looked at John Gallows, how they flocked around him like gulls to a fish boat, circling and diving for scraps of regard. There was something regretfully pleasing in being singled out, even by him. But her mission here was so much more important than any small boon to her vanity, and she was aggravated with herself for forgetting that—and aggravated with him as well, for making her forget.

She watched his eyes narrow the slightest bit as the orderly pulled his leg farther up, noticed the teeth grit inside his constant smile. “Would it help you to know I had a practical reason for requesting you?”

She raised an inquiring eyebrow.

The leg started its descent and she could see his grip on the bench loosen. “They’re going to stuff my leg into horrid packs of ice this afternoon, and I’ll have to sit there like a landed fish at market.” He nodded at the large orderly currently removing the weighted bag from his ankle. “No offense to Nelson here, but I’m going to need more distraction that he can provide. And it might prove a good time to practice my—” he hesitated a fraction of a second “—new skill.”

“Your
knitting?
” She emphasized the word. The public spectacle of his knitting had been his doing, after all. She was going to see that he owned up to it. Nelson looked down, hiding his smile in the business of taking weights out of the bag.

“You enjoyed shouting that.” There was too much tease in his voice for it to be an accusation.

“I did not shout. And you’re enjoying the way you’ve shanghaied me.”

“Nurse Sample, there you are. I see you’ve met your new assignment.” Dr. Madison came up behind her. “Well, of course you’ve already met, that’s the thing of it, isn’t it?” He looked over the top of his round glasses at Leanne. “You’ve your work cut out for you, but I suspect you already know that.”

This was how Papa’s horses must feel at market. “Tell me, Doctor, will I ever have the pleasure of being
consulted
before pressed into service regarding our esteemed captain?”

Dr. Madison blinked. Evidently it had never occurred to him that giving personal attention to a celebrity rather than clocking time in the hospital wards might not thrill her. Surely it would never occur to Gallows. Madison looked at her for a second, flicked his gaze to the captain, who shrugged. “Yes, well, there it is.” He made some kind of notation on his chart and went on as if he’d never heard her. “You’re to take three laps around the track, Gallows, followed by the ice for thirty minutes, then a rubdown.”

Leanne’s eyes went wide. “Not by
you
of course,” Captain Gallows assured her. “Whatever else I may be accused of, I am always a gentleman. Nelson over here, however, is a brute. It’s more of a pound-down, I promise you.”

Dr. Madison handed her the clipboard. “Three laps, one slow, followed by one quick, then the final slow. Long strides, no cane.”

Captain Gallows grinned as he pulled his khaki shirt back on. “I’ll have to lean on
something,
Doc.”

Dr. Madison smiled and turned toward the next bench. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll improvise.”

Nelson gathered up his things, scurrying out of the way of the captain’s grand plan. Leanne felt neatly cornered. Part of her was irritated at his manipulation. A large part. Then again, she remembered Ida’s groans about the unpleasant lot she’d been assigned in the wards. Perhaps it was best to look at this with gratitude. Thirty minutes in an ice bath sounded rather painful; could she really blame Captain Gallows for seeking the most distraction possible? And if he actually was planning on knitting, well then she could take satisfaction that her classes for soldiers recognized knitting’s ability to distract a man from tedium or pain. And Gallows was in pain, even if he worked hard to hide it from the world. She could see his pain. Maybe she
alone
could see it, and he knew that. Perhaps he felt he could drop the bravado, let his guard down a bit with her. She was here to learn to help soldiers heal, after all—why not this particular soldier?

Why not? The shameless grin on his face as he held his elbow out to her was why not. “Shall we promenade, Nurse Sample?” One would think from his tone that
he
was escorting
her
around the walking track, not the other way around. Honestly, the man’s showmanship knew no bounds.

She slipped one arm into his elbow, holding the clipboard with the other. “What shall we talk of while you
exercise,
Captain?” She felt the hitch in his step, the flinch in his arm when he put unaided weight on his leg. He made sure it wasn’t visible to an observer, but it was impossible to hide with her arm in his. She suspected he hadn’t counted on that. She suspected he also didn’t intend for her to hear the soft curse he muttered under his breath—but hear it she did.

“Anything you choose,” he said aloud.

Finally, something in
her
control. “Let’s start our discussion, then, on why it is inappropriate to take the Lord’s name in vain as you just did.”

He made a small groan. “I asked for distraction and you offer a lesson on manners?”

“Courtesy is a most engaging subject, Captain. Take, for example, the fact that most people of faith do not take kindly to a casual use of God’s name. I’ll ask you to refrain from such language in my presence,” she couldn’t help adding, “as any true gentleman would.”

“Well, I am nothing if not a gentleman.” They turned the first corner. He clearly hated being forced to go so slow; impatience and frustration radiated out of his body. “I’ll admit, however, to a…” He paused, selecting careful words. “…a respectful indifference to spiritual matters.”

“Truly? I was told there were no atheists in foxholes.”

“I’ve done precious little time in foxholes, thank…thank
goodness,
” he corrected himself with a nod toward her. “And I’m not an atheist. I believe God exists, but I don’t bother Him with my petty schemes. Your Lord and I? Well, we’re not on close terms.” He clipped off the end of his last word, cutting his step short. They were only halfway around the lap.

Wordlessly, Leanne shifted their arms so that she held his elbow. He didn’t allow himself to lean on her at first, but as they walked on, she felt him sink in slightly to the hold she had on him. It cost him something to do that, and his concession dissolved what was left of her annoyance. “I believe God yearns to be bothered with all our ‘petty schemes,’ as you call them,” she said gently. “Every last one of them.”

“He’d never have time to save the world if we bogged Him down with all that. God has a war to win out there. He’s on our side, don’t you know?”

In hospital rounds she’d had already, Leanne had seen enough meek and wounded soldiers to disagree. They were pale, shallow shadows, echoes of the men they must have once been. “God is in favor of justice, but I can’t believe war does not grieve Him. Not as such costs to His children. Not when men…when
boys
come home like this.”

“And what do you believe about the other side’s boys? Are the enemy boys God’s children, too?” He nodded to a slim young man grimacing through each step on a new prosthetic leg. John held the soldier’s glare—for it was just that. Gripping two bars as a pair of burly orderlies coaxed him into awkward, painful steps, the look he gave John was sour. As if John had no right to parade his good fortune in front of such a pitiful existence. Leanne felt the air chill, felt John stiffen even as she did herself. “Did God’s children do that to him? Why would God make His children wound each other in such horrible ways?”

The patient took one more dark look at John before allowing himself to be turned back the other way, and Leanne found herself grateful to have ended the exchange. It surprised her to realize not everybody admired Captain Gallows. As a matter of fact, based on the incident that just transpired, she was quite sure some men hated him. His golden achievements must seem to them like salt in their wounds. “God did not wound that man. A fallen world’s ugly war did that. Hate and greed bring war, evil brings war.” She tipped her chin in the direction of the amputee as they turned another corner. “God takes no pleasure in any man’s pain and death. I believe God loves the enemy who did that as much as the patriot who endures it.”

John was slowing, his gait growing more and more uneven as they went. “But one side is right and the other side is wrong. God cannot be on both sides. It wouldn’t square.”

She stopped and turned to face him, both to make her point and allow him rest. The effort of the smooth walk he’d just now manufactured had sweat dripping from his temples. His cavalier expression was only a neat mask over the pain in his eyes. “God is God, Captain Gallows. He’s not required to ‘square’ with anything we think or do. I’m not convinced that we don’t annoy Him so endlessly with our demands that He take sides.”