Homefront Hero

“How very fortunate.” Ida, who had stopped into the class to have Leanne correct a mistake on her current pair of socks, nearly purred her approval. “How so?”

Gallows sat down, and for the first time Leanne noticed how a shred of annoyance clipped his words. “I’m your new student.” There was the tiniest edge to the way he bit off the t in the last word.

“You?”

“Under orders, it seems.” He looked at the yarn as though it would infect him on contact.

Leanne dropped a stitch—something she never did. “Am I to understand that you’ve been ordered to learn how to knit?” She tried not to laugh, but the very thought of gallant Captain Gallows struggling with the turn of a sock heel was just too amusing an image, especially after the way he’d acted earlier. He may have long, elegant fingers, but they’d tangle mercilessly under so fine a task. Not only had he been dismissive, but Leanne was sure the captain hadn’t nearly the patience for it. He’d make a ghastly student.

Her assessment must have shown on her face, for his look darkened. Even though this was very obviously not his idea, he didn’t take to being doubted or dismissed. Oh, others might be fooled by his very good show, but Leanne could tell he wasn’t the least bit happy at the prospect of…whatever it was he’d been ordered to do. Which, actually, she wasn’t quite sure of yet. “You’re to knit Red Cross socks?”

“More precisely, I’m to be photographed learning how to knit Red Cross socks. I suppose as long as the rascals get the shot they want, whether or not I actually master the thing is beside the point.”

“Not to me,” Leanne countered. No set of cameras was going to turn her beloved craft and service into a three-ring circus. No, sir, not with this soldier.

“Leanne’s never failed yet—every student she’s had has managed at least one pair of socks,” said the woman to Leanne’s right with an enormous grin.

“If not dozens,” Ida added, her grin even wider. “I doubt she’ll let you be her first failure. Especially not on—did you say camera? Photographs?”

It was starting to make sense. Although many people had taken up the cause, the Red Cross was still woefully short of knitters. They’d been trying to convince more males to take up the needles in support of soldiers, and hadn’t had much luck. Capturing photos of someone with Captain Gallows’s reputation learning to knit would go a long way toward convincing other men to do likewise. They’d never find a more convincing spokesman. But goodness knows what they’d done to secure his cooperation, for she was sure he wasn’t pleased at the prospect by any means.

“I’m evidently the man to convince America’s men to knit. Or at least America’s boys.”

“Our dashing hero put to the needles.” Ida giggled. “Why, it’s a fine idea when you think of it. I know I can’t wait to see your first sock, Captain. I expect you could auction it off to the highest bidder and raise loads of funds for the Red Cross.”

“I declare, Ida, you’re brilliant.” Leanne jumped on the idea. If nothing else, it’d force the captain to see the project through, not just sit long enough to knit on film, but to actually learn the thing. And that was a most entertaining prospect. “I think you’ve hit on the perfect plan.”

“You’re joking.” Gallows balked. “It’ll be a hideous thing unfit for service to any soldier’s foot.”

“All the more reason that it should serve in some other way, then.” Leanne couldn’t suppress a wide smile. “We could set up a booth to auction it off at the Charleston Red Cross Christmas Banquet in November. My mama’s on the committee. I think a deadline would be a grand motivation for your progress, don’t you?”

Gallows stared at her, half amused, half daunted. “I don’t think the general knows who he’s dealing with. That’s downright mischievous, Miss Sample.”

“Oh, no,” said another of the women. “I think it’s the best idea ever. I wouldn’t be surprised if Leanne’s class size doubled the moment folks found out.”

“And you do your best work with an audience, Captain Gallows. You told me yourself.”

“Did I?” He had the look of a man who knew he was cornered. Leanne couldn’t hide the delightful spark of amusement and conquest she felt at turning the captain’s monstrous ego to a useful purpose. The woman was right—her classes would swell with new students once word got out that the dashing Captain Gallows was a fellow knitter. And with an audience to watch his triumphs and failures, he’d simply have to succeed. Perhaps even excel. And wouldn’t that be something to see?

“I am undone,” he said, throwing up his hands. “Overthrown. When you keep your appointment with the general this afternoon, I hope you won’t throw me to the wolves. Or is it the sheep in this case?”

“The general?”

“You’re to see General Barnes at two o’clock. He wants to explain his idea to you, but I have the most peculiar feeling it is you who’ll be doing all the explaining. The man ought to be warned.”

Leanne blushed. “You overstate my influence, Captain Gallows.”

“No,” he countered, giving her the most unsettling look, “I don’t think I do.” He got up—with a grimace of pain Leanne doubted anyone else noticed—and saluted the group. “Press on, ladies. Next week I join the forces. Until then.”

He made his way out the door, but Leanne was not done with this conversation. She told the group to continue knitting and caught up with the captain a ways down the hall.

“You’re serious?” she said as he turned, suddenly wondering if the whole thing had been one of Ida’s pranks.

“I assure you,” he replied, “I’d hardly make something like this up. I’m not at all sure my dignity will survive the day.”

So he had been cornered into it. By what? She motioned for them to continue walking. “If you don’t mind my asking, what on earth could make you agree to something like this?”

He gave out a slight sigh. “Let’s just say the general has something I want, and like most good commanders, he’s wielding it to his advantage.” He chuckled and leaned back against the wall. He made it look cavalier, but Leanne suspected by the way he cocked his right hip that he was very good at finding obscure ways to take the weight off his leg. “Blackmailed into needlework. I’ll never live it down.”

“What, exactly, is the general proposing?”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you at two o’clock.”

“I’m sure you’ll understand that I’d rather know now.”

Gallows took off his hat and sighed. “It seems a hoard of photographers from Era magazine will be invited to take pictures of you teaching me to knit. They’ll write an article saying how easy it is, and how much everyone’s help is needed, probably even publish a copy of the Red Cross pattern or whatever it is you call the directions. I’ll go on and on in dashing terms about how important it is, and how every boy should step up to the plate and do his bit. You’ll be famous for a spell and I’ll hold up my end of the bargain—which evidently now will involve producing an actual sock, thanks to your quick-witted friend back there. I should think it all is rather obvious.”

Leanne crossed her arms over her chest, not caring for his tone. “I should think it all rather obvious that I ought to have been asked. I don’t much care for being made a spectacle of, Captain, even if it is your favorite pastime.”

“No one asked me, either. I’m following orders.”

“And you strike me so much like a man who always does what he’s told.” Leanne turned to head back to her classroom.

“I’m not!” he shot back. “Not unless it gets me what I want.”

Leanne merely huffed. No one seemed to give one whit about her opinion in all of this. She marched off to her classroom without a single look back.

Chapter Six

Captain Gallows sat entirely too close. Leanne shifted her chair farther away from him as they sat in the Red Cross House parlor. Then she set her knitting bag on a small table and pulled it between them for good measure. Their first photo session was in three days, but he’d pestered her nonstop until she’d agreed to give him an off-camera lesson first.

“I still don’t know about this,” she said. They were two minutes into the lesson and she was already regretting giving in to his persistent demands. “You’re supposed to be photographed learning how to knit.”

“And I will.” While Gallows’s smile was worthy of a matinee idol, it was a genuine one—or at least, it seemed to be. He had another manufactured smile—she’d seen him employ it during the reception after his first appearance. That smile was just as cinema-dashing, but it never reached his eyes with the same intensity. It stopped somehow at the edges of his mouth.

She could see the distinction between his “public” and his “private” smiles as clear as day, but others didn’t seem to. It bothered her—and she suspected it bothered him—that she could tell the difference. It felt like too much information to know, like walking into a room that ought to have been locked. Why did she, of all people, see through his facade? Worse yet, he knew she recognized her effect on him. And it bothered her that he knew she knew. The whole business felt like an emotional house of mirrors—awareness reflecting back onto confusion upon discomfort. Knitting was supposed to be calming.

Leanne picked up the set of needles she’d selected for him. They were slightly larger than the usual sock needles, but Captain Gallows needed something substantial that wouldn’t get lost in those large hands. “Some would say learning ahead of the photographs that are supposed to show you learning would be cheating.” Where was the nerve to talk to him like that coming from? One simply didn’t tease a war hero as if he were a little brother. Certainly not this war hero. Still, the spark he would get in his eyes when she did was an irresistible lure.

He raised an eyebrow, the gleam emanating full force. “I’m not cheating. I’m rehearsing.”

“Really?” She gave him an expression she hoped showed her dislike for the way he wrangled semantics to his advantage.

“Remember, it’s my job to make this look easy.”

It bothered her that he actually had a point. The Red Cross cause would only be served by his mastery. “This, of course, places no small amount of pressure on my teaching skills.”

His eyes sparkled. “Let’s not dwell on how much is at stake.”