Homefront Hero

“Have you been to Tennessee, Ida?”

Ida groaned. “I feel like I have now. At least that one had the decency to pass out eventually. At the start, he was fighting me like I was the enemy.” She pulled herself upright. “And speaking of pain and chivalry, how was your knitting lesson with Captain Gallows?”

Leanne winced. She’d hoped to avoid this conversation with Ida, who was quick to insert a romantic intention into just about any male-female interaction. Leanne hadn’t really decided what to make of John Gallows, and she didn’t want Ida jumping to all kinds of conclusions. “Well—” she planted her eyes on the outline “—I did change my mind about it being unnecessary. As it turns out, Captain Gallows did most certainly need a dress rehearsal.”

Ida raised an eyebrow.

“Really, I’m not sure he had any more trouble than any other first-time student, but it did seem to fluster him more than he liked.” She remembered the look on his face, amazed how it still surprised her for reasons she couldn’t quite work out.

“Fluster?” She leaned on her desk, planting her elbows in a “tell me all about it” pose.

Leanne looked down to see she’d written “John?” above an illustration of leg exercises. She quickly crossed it out and turned the page. The last thing she needed to do was to refer to Captain Gallows by his given name in front of someone with Ida’s imagination. “I believe the captain is used to mastering things quickly, that’s all. He’d thought it would be easier—I did, too, actually—but even with larger needles his big hands make it difficult. It took longer than either of us thought it would.”

“But you succeeded in teaching our brave hero?”

Leanne wasn’t sure she succeeded at anything except bringing herself into a further state of confusion. Still, she was relatively certain Gallows would look more in command of his stitches at the first photo shoot tomorrow. He’d actually been right. Had they just taken photos, it would have been clear to her or any other knitter that he wasn’t really knitting. It was painfully obvious to her when people pretended to knit in paintings or photos—their needles were always pointed upward, waggling about in a way that couldn’t possibly produce stitches. John had wanted to make sure he was knitting so that it looked real in the photographs. While she’d first chalked that up to vanity, she’d realized it was a sort of integrity. An honor she hadn’t really attributed to the man with the gleaming cinema-star smile. “Yes,” she said feeling a regrettable hint of color come over her cheeks. “We made it work and I think tomorrow will be a success.”

“You’ll be famous. Have you thought of that?”

Leanne sincerely doubted anyone even noticed her in the same room with someone like Captain Gallows. “Not really.”

“I heard the quartermaster talking about the supplies he needed to get for all those Era magazine people. They’re talking about putting Captain Gallows on the cover.” She nodded at Leanne. “If he’s on, you’re on. We’re gonna have to get your hair done up right and everything. Have you even given a moment’s thought to that?”

Leanne had actually thought about what she wanted to wear. Not because of the cameras, but because of something John had said. Something about sky-blue being his favorite color. She had a blouse the color of the sky. Mama had said the color suited her especially well. The sleeves had a delicate ruffle at her wrists, which she supposed would be the only part of her to make it into a photo of any kind.

Yesterday, her planned obscurity didn’t bother her at all. As a matter of fact, General Barnes had said something to the effect that she’d “hardly be noticed” and she’d been almost relieved at the assurance. Today, after the supreme teaching effort required to get Gallows to any kind of competency, she found herself miffed. No one had ever asked what she thought of this campaign. Of course she agreed with the need to get more people knitting for the soldiers. And it was dreadfully difficult to convince boys to pick up the yarn and needles with images of their doting grandmothers clouding their vision. But it all seemed so…so…contrived. As if both she and John had been tricked into something far beyond their original intentions by people who didn’t really care about the true purpose.

John seemed to actually care. He covered it up well, but she could see it in the way he chose his words, the way he would try over and over to get the stitches right. But she had the niggling sense that his ego wouldn’t allow anyone to know he cared. Would he let go of all that bravado if they knew each other better? Did she want to know John Gallows better?

Would he even take the time if given the chance? Leanne found she couldn’t be sure he took this as seriously as she. She took this very seriously, and it bothered her that no one else seemed to. Certainly not the general nor any of the Era staff. They’d made no effort to get in touch with her directly, and learn more about the knitting program. Clearly the publicity angle involving the captain was all that interested them. It was probably just another way to sell magazines. And could she really be sure of John’s motives? John Gallows was known in Charleston as a charmer who collected—and then dismissed—female admirers. What if he’d been behind it from the beginning, picked her out for what he hoped was a compliant spirit? Yet another damsel who would merely swoon under his spell? She felt her annoyance rise just picturing those magazine people angling lights and asking for wider smiles. Sky-blue? Suddenly Leanne wanted to wear bright red. To stand out. To stand up.

“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

John’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.”