Homefront Hero
Allie Pleiter
THE CAPTAIN OF HER HEARTDashing and valiantly wounded, Captain John Gallows could have stepped straight out of a navy recruitment poster. Leanne Sample can’t help being impressed—although the lovely Red Cross volunteer tries to hide it.She knows better than to get attached to the daring captain who is only home to heal and help rally support for the war’s final push. As soon as he’s well enough, he’ll rush back to Europe, back to war—and far away from South Carolina and Leanne.But when an epidemic strikes the university campus, John comes to realize what it truly means to be a hero—Leanne’s hero.
The captain of her heart
Dashing and valiantly wounded, Captain John Gallows could have stepped straight out of a navy recruitment poster. Leanne Sample can’t help being impressed—although the lovely Red Cross volunteer tries to hide it. She knows better than to get attached to the daring captain who is only home to heal and help rally support for the war’s final push. As soon as he’s well enough, he’ll rush back to Europe, back to war—and far away from South Carolina and Leanne. But when an epidemic strikes the university campus, John comes to realize what it truly means to be a hero—Leanne’s hero.
“You gave a stunning presentation, Captain. Yours is a harrowing tale.”
A flicker of a shadow came over his eyes at her use of the word. It was instantly replaced by the cavalier expression. “Ah, but so heroic and inspiring.”
“It makes it unfair that your leg pains you so much.”
She expected him to give some dashing dismissal of the judgment, but he paused. He looked at her as if she were the first person ever to say such a thing, which couldn’t possibly be true. “Why?” It was said in the oddest tone.
“I…” She fumbled, not knowing the answer herself. “I should think it a terrible shame. It seems a very brave thing you’ve done.”
“Wars need heroes,” he said, “and those of us in the wrong place at the wrong time find ourselves drafted into that need. I don’t ponder whether I limp from justice or bravery, Nurse Sample. I just try to walk.”
His smile had a dark edge to it as he walked away. With an odd little catch under her chest, Leanne noted that while he hid it extremely well, he still limped.
ALLIE PLEITER
Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two and RITA® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a B.S. in speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.
Homefront Hero
Allie Pleiter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid;
do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God
will be with you wherever you go.”
— Joshua 1:9
To Suzanne,
a brave hero and a warrior in her own right
Acknowledgments
A wise writer brings lots of good counsel
with her into a historical manuscript.
In addition to John M. Barry’s invaluable book
The Great Influenza, I owe thanks to many other good people who served as sources: Paula Benson, Dr. John Boyd of the 81st Regional Support Command, Susan Craft, Kristina Dunn Johnson
at The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room
and Military Museum, Mary Jo Fairchild at
the South Carolina Historical Society,
Mary J. Manning (and the entire outstanding museum) at the Cantigny First Division Foundation, Nichole Riley at Moncrief Army Community Hospital, Stephanie Sapp at
Jackson Army Base U.S. Army Basic
Combat Training Museum, Christina Shedlock at the Charleston County Public Library and Elizabeth Cassidy West and the other dedicated librarians at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina at Columbia. Any factual errors should be laid at my feet, not at the excellent information these people provided me.
Contents
Chapter One (#u91501f11-4e89-502e-807e-f601e64a4b19)
Chapter Two (#u50087e1c-9e5e-5957-b8ac-b6deb92ddadb)
Chapter Three (#u6cc21b53-a6c3-5f4b-b4f1-030795f07e32)
Chapter Four (#u934375d4-235b-5db7-b8de-cae510d69a9e)
Chapter Five (#ue7a3db7a-0a14-500e-9f3f-7550e4182e7f)
Chapter Six (#u8a041414-495f-523a-bb2f-9b62dd10fcfe)
Chapter Seven (#u439477b5-062a-5a01-90bd-8022882d7bfa)
Chapter Eight (#u0bf4bfa9-924e-5b79-ba57-132fab32112b)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Camp Jackson Army Base
Columbia, South Carolina
September 1918
“I still can’t believe it.” Leanne Sample gazed around at the busy activity of Camp Jackson. Even with all she’d heard and seen while studying nursing at nearby University of South Carolina, the encampment stunned her. This immense property had only recently been mere sand, pine and brush. Now nearly a thousand buildings created a self-contained city. She was part of that city. Part of the monumental military machine poised to train and treat the boys going to and coming from “over there.” She was a staff nurse at the base army hospital. “We’re really here.”
“Unless I’m seein’ things, we most definitely are here.” Ida Landway, Leanne’s fellow nurse and roommate at the Red Cross House where they and other newer nurses were housed, elbowed her. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, but I still can barely believe this place wasn’t even here two years ago.” Together they stared at the layout of the orderly, efficient streets and structures, rows upon rows of new buildings standing in formation like their soldier occupants. “It’s a grand, impressive thing, Camp Jackson. Makes me proud.”
Leanne had known Ida briefly during their study program at the university, but now that they were officially installed at the camp, Leanne already knew her prayers for a good friend in the nursing corps had been answered. Different as night and day, Leanne still had found Ida a fast and delightful companion. Ida’s sense of humor was often the perfect antidote to the stresses of military base life. As such, their settling in at the Red Cross House and on the hospital staff had whooshed by her in a matter of days, and been much easier than she’d expected.
Still, “on-staff” nursing life was tiring. “There was so much to do,” Leanne said to Ida as she tilted her face to the early fall sunshine as they chatted with other nurses on the hillside out in front of the Red Cross House. “Too many things are far more complicated in real service then I ever found them in class.”
“A free afternoon. I was wondering if we’d ever get one. Gracious, I remember thinking our class schedules were hard.” Ida rolled her shoulders. “Hard has a whole new meaning to me now.” This afternoon had been their first stretch of free time, and they’d decided to spend an hour doing absolutely nothing before taking the trolley into Columbia to attend a war rally on the USC campus that evening.
“However are you going to have time to do this?” Ida pointed to a notice of base hospital events pinned to a post outside the Red Cross House. “I feel like I’ve barely time to breathe, and you’re already lined up to teach knitting classes.”
“I’ve managed to find the time to teach you,” Leanne reminded her newest student.
“Don’t I know it. I tell you, my mama’s jaw would drop if she saw I’ve already learned to knit. I guess you’ve found right where you fit in the scheme of things around here.”
Ida was right; Leanne had found her place on base almost instantly. As if God had known just where to slot her in, placing an opening for a teacher in the Red Cross sock knitting campaign. If there was anything Leanne knew for certain she could do, it was to knit socks for soldiers. She’d run classes for her schoolmates at the university; it seemed easy as pie to do the same thing here. And it would help her make friends so quickly—hadn’t she already? In only a matter of days the vastness of the base seemed just a wide-open ocean of possibilities.
Of course, there were others who were less thrilled at the opportunities ahead of Leanne—namely, her parents. Mama and Papa had come to see her settled in, and they hadn’t left yet. They’d already stayed on in Columbia two days longer than planned. Papa attributed it to “necessary business contacts” here in the state capital, but Leanne knew better. Mama wasn’t at all calm about the prospect of her daughter being an army nurse. Leanne had agreed to meet her parents for a last luncheon before they caught their train, a final goodbye off base before tonight’s rally. In truth Leanne worried that despite already-packed bags, Mama would invent some other reason to delay their return to Charleston.
Ida must have read her expression. “Oh, stop fretting about your mama and papa, will you? Don’t give them reason to stay one more minute. You’re in for a ten-hankie bout of tears no matter what, so best just to get it over with. Don’t you give them one inch of reason to stay off that train.”
Leanne couldn’t argue. She’d declared to herself that even Mama’s fits of worry would not be permitted to dampen the eager wonder she felt to finally be in service. Leanne squared her shoulders and straightened her spine. “I am a United States Army nurse. I am an educated woman—” she shot a sideways glance at Ida as she adjusted the colored cape that designated her as a leader of the newly graduated nursing class “—and I am a force to be reckoned with.”
“I’ll say an amen to that!” Ida flashed her generous smile that widened further as she pointed to a large new bill posted in a spot all its own. “Speaking of forces to be reckoned with, I reckon our evening will be highly entertaining.” She peered closer at an announcement for the “rousing patriotic speech” to be given by “a true wartime hero.” “‘Hear the daring exploits of Army Captain John Gallows,’” Ida read aloud. “‘Thrill to the tale of how he saved lives at the risk of his own.’ Well, where I come from a gallows is something to be feared.”
Leanne could only laugh. Some days Ida sounded as if West Virginia were the wild, wild West. “Oh, that might still be true here. The Gallowses are a very formidable Charleston family.”
“Have you met them?”
“I’ve not had the pleasure, but I believe our fathers know each other back in Charleston. A fine family going back for generations.”
Ida leaned back and crossed her arms while eyeing the dashing photograph of Captain Gallows that illustrated the announcement. “Fine indeed. He’s certainly handsome enough.” She adjusted her stiff white apron as if primping for the photograph’s admiration. Ida did like to be admired, especially by gallant army officers. “I can’t think of a better way to spend our first free evening off base. Perhaps he’ll let me sketch him.”
“Why is it you want to sketch every handsome man you meet?” Leanne teased. Already she could see it might prove hard to keep her artistically inclined roommate focused on her duties. Ida was a free spirit if ever there was one, and while she took her nursing very seriously, her adventurous nature already pulled her too often away from her tasks.
“I’d be delighted to sit for you,” came a deep voice behind them. “Especially if you are so partial to handsome war heroes.”
Ida and Leanne spun on their heels to find the very man depicted in the photograph. Complete with the dashing smile. Even out of his dress uniform—for he wore a coat, but not one as fancy or full of medals as the one in the photograph—he was every bit the U.S. Army poster-boy hero. His dark hair just barely contained itself in its slick comb-back underneath his cap. He carried himself with unmistakably military command—Leanne suspected she’d have known he was an officer even in civilian clothes. He certainly was very sure of himself—a long moment passed before Leanne even noticed he leaned jauntily on a cane.
Ida planted one hand on her hip. “Well—” her voice grew silky “—no one can fault you for an excess of modesty. Still, my daddy always said a healthy ego was a heroic trait, so I suppose I can let it slide, Captain Gallows.” She drew out the pronunciation of his name with a relish that made Leanne flush.
Captain Gallows was evidently all-too-accustomed to such attentions, for he merely widened his dashing smile and gave a short bow to each of them. “How do you do?” He pointed to the sign. “Say you’ll attend tonight’s event, and my fears of facing an audience full of dull-faced students and soldiers will be put to rest.”
“Are you one of the Four Minute Men, then?” Leanne asked. Her father had been asked to serve on the nationally launched volunteer speakers board, called “Four Minute Men” for the prescribed length of their speeches, but Papa had declined. Still, from the superlatives on his bill, Captain Gallows could go on for four hours and still hold his audience captive.
“The best. They give me as long as I want. They tell me I’m enthralling.”
“I have no doubt they do. I’m Ida Lee Landway, and this is my friend Leanne Sample. We’ve just joined the nursing staff at the base hospital.”
The captain tipped his hat. “How fortunate for our boys in the wards. Miss Landway, Miss Sample, I’m delighted to meet you. Tell me what I can say to convince you to come to the rally.”
“Oh, it won’t take much,” Ida cooed.
“We were just on our way over to town early and already planning to attend,” Leanne corrected. “No persuasion will be required.” He certainly seemed a cocky sort, this Captain Gallows.
“I’m not so sure,” he replied with a disarming grin. “I was on campus this morning and one of the students told me she would come, but she would bring her knitting. Not the kind of response I’m used to, I must say. I’m trying to see it as a patriotic act, not an expectation of my inability to fascinate.”
Definitely a cocky sort. “Don’t take that as an affront at all, Captain Gallows. I’m meeting my parents for luncheon and I have my knitting with me right now.”
“Well, I can’t say I haven’t longed for a sharp pointy stick in several conversations with my own father.”
Leanne didn’t find that especially funny. “The Red Cross encourages us to knit everywhere we can, Captain Gallows.” She tried not to glare as she pointed to the bag currently slung over her shoulder. “I assure you, I knit even in church, so the presence of anyone’s yarn and needles need be no dent to your confidence. Our boys need socks as much as the army needs our boys.”
Gallows tucked a hand in his pocket. “Duly noted, ma’am.” He turned to Ida. “Does the Red Cross know what a fine champion they have in nurse Leanne Sample?”
“They ought to,” Ida boasted. “She’s been here a week and already she’s teaching two knitting classes at the hospital.”
“Impressive,” Gallows replied. “I’m sure the fellows here at the hospital have told you there are days when a pair of warm, dry socks are the highlight of the week. I suppose if I just remember that while you all are staring down at your needles instead of up at me, I’ll be just fine.”
The man enjoyed being the center of attention—that much was clear. “You needn’t worry. Most of us can stitch without even looking. I’ve knit so many pairs of socks I think I could probably knit in my sleep by now.”
“Not me,” Ida said. “Leanne’s a good teacher, but I fear for the feet that’ll have to put up with my socks. I’ll have to stare down a fair amount—” she paused and batted her long auburn eyelashes “—but not the whole time.”
“Well, then.” Gallows rocked back on his boot heels. “I have my orders. I’m to be enthralling but not distracting. Have I got it right?”
“I have no doubt you do such a job very well,” Leanne replied, not wanting to give Ida another chance at that one. “Good day, Captain. We’ve a trolley to catch, but we’ll also catch your enthralling-but-not-distracting presentation this evening.”
Gallows tipped his hat. “You do your bit, I’ll do mine.”
Chapter Two
Captain John Gallows planted his feet—or rather one good foot, one bad foot and the tip of his cane—on the porch of the Camp Jackson officers’ hall. He’d envisioned his homecoming so very differently.
Still, he was in South Carolina, if not yet in Charleston. And home, in the form of his formidable and sharp-pointy-stick-worthy father, had come running to him.
“John.” His father pulled open the door before John even set hand to the knob. He gave John a stiff clap on the back. The force made John put more weight on his bad leg than he would have liked. “Our boy, our hero, home for a bit from the grand tour of rousting up recruits, hmm?”
His father undoubtedly considered talking up war a poor substitute for winning one, but John shook off those thoughts as he shook his father’s hand. “You know me,” he said, applying his most charming smile, “ready to open my big mouth for a good cause.”
“Welcome home, dear,” John’s mother cooed as she emerged from the hall behind his father. “Oh, look at that medal.” She smoothed out the front of his uniform and the medal for bravery that continually hung there now. “My son. Decorated for valor.” The pride in her voice was warm and sugary.
John had saved six lives, but only really in his efforts to keep his own. That didn’t feel like bravery. He wasn’t even supposed to be on that navy dirigible except for a favor he was granting to his commander’s buddy. Still, John could spin a rousing tale and history had thrown him into a dramatic scenario. As such, John had been healed up quickly and delivered to several American cities to give speeches. He was eager to return to fighting, but hoped this recruitment tour would better his chances at being admitted to pilot training. Pilots, now those were the real heroes. If doing his best to stir up the patriotic spirit wherever and whenever asked got him closer to that kind of glory, he’d gladly comply.
“How handsome you look,” Mama went on. “How much older than twenty-two. You walk differently, even.”
John winked. “That would be the cane, ma’am,” he joked, swinging it the way Charlie Chaplin did in the movies. He tipped the corner of his hat for effect.
Father made some sort of a gruff sound, but she laughed. “No, that would be the man, son. I’m not talking about your gait, but the way you carry yourself. With wisdom. Authority.”
“Flattery. Don’t you think you’re just a little bit biased?” he teased her.
“Of course I am,” she said, reaching up to lay a hand on each of his shoulders. “Oh, I am just so glad to have you home!” She hugged him tight. “And for so long a leave! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had this nasty business sewn up before y’all even had a chance to get back over there.”
“Now, Deborah,” John’s father replied in his “let’s be sensible” voice, which had the desirable effect of removing Mama’s hands from John’s shoulders, “I hardly think they’d want Johnny back here making all those speeches if the end is near.” His father’s gaze flicked down momentarily to the black cane. “Besides, you’re here to get the best of care while that leg heals.”
“How is it?” Mama asked, following Father’s gaze.
It hurt. All the time. But John had figured out early on that truth wasn’t always the desired answer. “I’ll be fine,” he said, employing his now-stock reply to all such questions. Most days, it was the truth. Yet every moment since the train had pulled into Columbia, he’d felt odd…as if his body suddenly found his home state a foreign land.
Mama tucked her hand in John’s free arm. “To think of my boy, dangling up there over the water, saving lives at the risk of his very own.” Her voice trailed off and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
Saving lives at the risk of his very own. The words came directly from the press wire he’d seen. From the paper they’d read when they’d pinned the medal on him. From the leaflet that papered the cities where he spoke. Funny, all that bravery sounded like it belonged to someone else, even though John had vivid memories to prove otherwise. No man forgets hanging upside down from the stay wires of a dirigible a mile up and a mile out to sea. An army captain, in the air and out to sea. A fluke of circumstance that turned into a near-death disaster. He’d take the memory of nothing but air between himself and his death to his grave, even if he never spoke of it again. He wished he could never speak of it again, never again hear himself be lauded for an act that had no selfless heroism to it at all. It wasn’t admirable to go to drastic lengths to save an airship when the alternative was crashing into the ocean with it.
“A heroic tale, surely,” Papa boasted. “I imagine the ladies think even more highly of you now.”
Father was right in that respect. The only thing ladies liked more than a man in uniform was a decorated hero in uniform. And John—like every member of the well-bred Gallows family—was a social success even before he slipped into uniform. He’d not lacked for company for one minute of his hospital stay, the voyage home, or his multi-city speaking circuit. “Well, now,” he quipped, “hard to say. The nurses are supposed to be attentive. It’s their job.”
“I have the feeling ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ has a new meaning.” Oscar Gallows laughed. He’d been a dashing soldier in his own day, Mama always said. “Seems to me y’all won’t hurt for company one bit.”
“Do you have to stay at the camp?” Mama asked…again. “Why can’t you come home to Charleston? You’d be so much more comfortable at home with us.”
“The hospital reconstruction therapists are here, Mother. And I am still on active duty. I’ve got to go where they send me.”
Mama pouted. “Tell them to send you home to your mama’s good care.”
“That’s no way for a Gallows to serve, Deborah. John has duties to perform even while he heals. You wouldn’t want him to finish up the war as a mere spokesman, would you?”
Oscar Gallows began strutting toward the general’s house where they had a luncheon engagement before John’s big speech tonight. His father walked quickly, giving no quarter to John’s injured leg.
John wasn’t surprised. A Gallows gave no quarter to anyone, least of all himself.
* * *
“It’s so dry here.” Leanne watched her mama mop her brow and frown over her glass of tea. “And dreadfully hot without any kind of breeze. I don’t know how you don’t just shrivel up.”
In truth, Columbia was a lovely town. It held the University of South Carolina and the state capitol—both as fine cultural centers for the region as any of which Charleston could boast. While it lacked the sea breeze, it also lacked the rain-soaked humidity that sent Charlestonians running out of their city to their beach houses. “I’m half a day to the coast, Mama. And no, I won’t shrivel up. For goodness’ sakes, I’m a nurse… I imagine I’ve learned how to care for myself in the process.”
“That place is just massive,” Mama moaned, casting her glance across town in the direction of Camp Jackson. Mama had made it clear, over and over and despite Leanne’s many statements to the contrary, that she had fully expected Leanne to return to Charleston after completing her courses at the university, not join the service as she had done. “And so drab.” Mama put a dramatic hand to her chest. “What if they decide to send you overseas?”
“They won’t send me overseas, Mama. I’m needed here. Can’t you see what an opportunity this is?”
Papa, who had been rather quiet the entire trip, put a hand on Mama’s shoulder. “She needs to do her part, and far better here than over there. She’ll learn a great deal.” Leanne had the distinct impression he was half lecturing himself. “Honestly, Maureen, Columbia is not that far from Charleston.”
“Not far at all, Papa,” Leanne assured him. “And I’ll be able to feel so much more useful here.” She’d learned a great many things already, and was about to learn a great deal more. The world was changing so fast for women these days—there was talk of voting and owning property and pursuing careers in literature and painting, serving overseas, all kinds of things. Awful as it was, the war gave women the chance to do things they’d never done before. The lines of tradition were bending in new and exciting ways, and if they would only bend for this time, she couldn’t bear to miss exploring all she could in a town that was right at the heart of it all.
Leanne yearned to know she’d made a difference—in lives and in the healing of souls and bodies. She felt as if she would make too small a contribution in Charleston now that the university had shown her how far a life’s reach could be. Leanne wanted God to cast her life’s reach far and wide.
As they finished their luncheon and walked reluctantly to the train station, Mama smoothed out Leanne’s collar one last time.
“I’ll be fine, Mama, really. I’m excited. Don’t be sad.”
Mama’s hand touched Leanne’s cheek. “I’ll pray for you every day, darlin’. Every single day.”
Leanne took her mother’s hand in hers. Mama’s promise to cover her in prayer ignited the tiny spark of fear—the anxiety of God’s great big reach stretching her too far—that she’d swallowed all day. Her assignment in the reconstruction ward of the camp hospital, helping soldiers recover from their wounds, was so important, but a bit frightening at the same time. She swallowed her nerves for the thousandth time, willing them not to show one little bit. “I’d like that,” she said with all the confidence she could muster. “But I’ll be home for Thanksgiving before you know it. And I’ll write. I’m sure the Charleston Red Cross will keep you so busy you’ll barely have time to miss me.”
“I miss you already.” Mama’s voice broke, and Leanne gave a pleading look to her father. The Great Goodbye—as she’d called it in her mind all this week—had already taken an hour longer than she’d expected.
“We’ve lingered long enough, Maureen.” Papa took Mama’s hands from Leanne’s and tugged her mother’s resistant body toward the station platform. Leanne thought that if he waited even five more minutes, Mama might affix herself to a Columbia streetlamp and refuse to let go. “It’s high time we let our little girl do what she came to do.” He leaned in and kissed Leanne soundly on the cheek. “Be good, work hard.” It was the same goodbye he’d said every single morning of her school years. It helped to calm the tiny fearful spark, as if this was just another phase of her education instead of a life-altering adventure.
“I will.” Leanne blew a kiss to her mother, afraid that if she gave in to the impulse to run and hug Mama, Papa would have to peel them tearfully off each other.
“Write!” Mama called, the sniffles already starting as Papa guided her down the platform toward the waiting train. Leanne nodded, her own throat choking up at the sound of Mama’s impending tears. Papa had joked that he’d brought eleven handkerchiefs for the trip home and warned the county of the ensuing flood.
Leanne clutched the hanky he’d given her as she stood smiling and waving. As sad as she was to see them go, she couldn’t help but feel that this was a rite of passage, a necessary step in becoming her own woman. Childhood was over—she was a nurse now. Part of the Great War. Part of the great cause of the Red Cross and a new generation of women doing things women had never done before.
It is, she told herself as she turned toward the university auditorium where she’d promised to meet Ida, a very good sort of terrifying.
Chapter Three
It could have been any of the dozens of halls, churches, auditoriums and ballrooms John had been in over the past month. He paced the tiny cluttered backstage and tried to walk off the nerves and pain. He tried, as well, to walk off the boyish hope that his father had stayed for the presentation. Foolishness, for not one of these maladies—physical or mental—would ease with steps. He knew that, but it was better than sitting as he waited impatiently for his speech to start.
If only he could run. It would feel wonderful to run, the way he used to run for exercise and sheer pleasure. More foolishness to think of that, for it would be torture to run now. John’s uncooperative leg ignored his persistent craving to go fast. The fact that he went nowhere fast these days proved a continual frustration to his lifelong love of speed. He’d been aiming to drive those new race cars when the war broke out, and he’d heard some of the race-car drivers were trying to form a battalion of pilots. Airplanes, now there was the future—not just of warfare but of everything. Nothing went faster than those. When the army had hinted he’d have a chance at the Air Corps, he’d signed up as fast as he could.
And he did end up in the air.
On the slowest airship ever created.
John’s only chance at air travel came in the form of a diplomatic mission on a huge, sluggish navy dirigible—the furthest thing from what he’d had in mind. Still, as he was now about to tell in the most enthralling way possible, even that fluke of history had managed to catapult him into notoriety.
Pulling the thick red velvet curtain to the side, John couldn’t stop himself from scanning the sea of uniforms for the one he would not see: Colonel Oscar Gallows. Mother had surely pleaded, but even as a retired colonel Father wasn’t the kind of man who had time to watch his son “stump” for Uncle Sam. How often had the colonel scowled at John’s oratory skills, calling his son “a man of too many words”? And not enough action—Father had never actually said it, but the message came through loud and clear.
John consoled himself by scanning the audience for the scattered pockets of female students and army base nurses. Nearly all, as Nurse Sample had predicted, were knitting. He tried to seek her out, looking for that stunning gold hair and amber eyes that nearly scowled at his swagger. It was clear her friend Ida was taken with him—women often were, so that was no novelty. Leanne Sample, however, fascinated him by being indifferent, perhaps even unimpressed. He scanned the audience again, hoping to locate her seat so he could direct a part of his speech especially to her. Her kind were everywhere, a sea of women with clicking needles working the same drab trio of official colors—black, beige and that particularly tiresome shade of U.S. Army olive-green.
There she was. My, but she was pretty. Her thick fringe of blond lashes shielded her eyes as she bent over her work. She seemed delicate with all that light hair and pale skin, but the way she held her shoulders spoke of a wisp of defiance. He made it a personal goal to enthrall her to distraction. To draw those hazel eyes up off those drab colors and onto him.
In full dress, John knew he’d draw eyes, and easily stand out in this crowd. And if there was anything he did well, it was to stand out. Gallows men were supposed to stand out, after all. To distinguish themselves by courageous ambition. Ha! Even the colonel seemed to realize that John’s path to notoriety had only really been achieved by climbing up and falling down on a ship he should never have been on in the first place. This from a man who’d spent his life trying to stand out and go fast. His life had been turned on its ear in any number of ways since this whole messy business began.
The university president tapped John on the shoulder. “Are you ready, Captain Gallows?” John could hear the school band begin a rousing tune on the other side of the curtain.
He did what he always did: he dismissed the pain, shook off his nerves and applied the smile that had charmed hearts and reeled in recruits in ten American cities. “By all means, sir.” He left his cane leaning up against the backstage wall, tilted his hat just so and walked out into the myth of glory.
* * *
Proud.
Did Captain John Gallows earn such arrogance?
Yes, he was heroic, but the man’s self-importance seemed to know no bounds. As he told the harrowing tale of his brush with death, dangling from airship stay wires to effect a life-saving repair while the crew lay wounded and helpless, Leanne could feel the entire room swell with admiration. Women wanted to be near him, men wanted to be him. His eyes were such an astounding dark blue—rendered even more astounding against the crisp collar of his uniform—that one hardly even noticed his limp. He didn’t use his cane on stage, but Leanne reasoned that they’d arranged the stage in such a way as to afford him the shortest walk possible to the podium. The way he told the story, however, it was a wonder the audience didn’t break into applause at his very ability to walk upright. While his entanglement in the dirigible’s stay wires had saved his life, it had also shredded his right leg to near uselessness. He never said that outright, but Leanne could read between the lines of his crafted narrative. She guessed, just by how he phrased his descriptions and avoided certain words, that his leg still pained him significantly—both physically and emotionally. He did not seem a man to brook limitations of any kind.
“Now is the time to finish the job we’ve started,” he said, casting his keen eyes out across the audience. “Our enemy is close to defeated. Our cause is the most important one you will ever know.” Captain Gallows pointed out into the audience, and Leanne had no doubt every soul in the building felt as if he were pointing straight at them—she knew she did. “When you look your sons and daughters in the eye decades from now, as they enjoy a world of peace and prosperity, will you be able to say you did your part? Can you say you answered duty’s sacred call?”
Cheers began to swell up from the audience. The young students off to her left began to stand and clap. Next to her, Ida brandished her newly employed knitting needles as if she were Joan of Arc charging her troops into battle. Despite her resistance to Gallows, Leanne felt the echo of a “yes!” surge up in her own heart. Her work as a nurse, her aid to the troops and even her leisure hours spent knitting dozens of socks for soldiers answered her call. Homefront nurses were as essential to the cause as those serving overseas. She understood the need for combat, but wanted no part of it. Leanne longed to be part of the healing. And beyond her nursing, she was using her knitting, as well. She’d taught hospital staff how to knit the government-issued sock pattern, and she’d teach her first class of patients later this week. When those classes were off and stitching, she would teach more. For there was so very much to be done.
When someone behind her started up a chorus of last year’s popular war song “Over There,” Leanne stopped knitting and joined in. It felt important, gravely important, to be part of something so large and daunting. To be here, on her own, both serving and learning. The whole world was changing, and God had planted her on the crest of the incoming wave. While her grandmother had moaned that the war was “the worst time to be alive,” Leanne couldn’t help but feel that Nana was wrong. Despite all the hardship, this was indeed the best time to be young and alive.
If Captain Gallows wished to stir the crowd to the heights of patriotic frenzy, he had certainly succeeded. More than half the students in the room were now on their feet, cheering. Even Leanne had to admit Gallows was a compelling, charismatic spokesman for the cause. Perhaps she could be more gracious toward his very healthy ego than she had been earlier that day.
Captain Gallows made his way off the stage as the university chorus came onstage to lead in another song. She could see him “offstage” because of her vantage point far to the left, but he must have thought he was out of view for his limp became pronounced and he sank into a nearby chair. As the singing continued, she watched him, transfixed by the change in his stature. He picked his cane up from where it lay against the backstage wall. Instead of rising, as she expected him to do, he sat there, eventually leaning over the cane with his head resting on top of his hands. He looked as if he were in great pain. From the looks of it, his leg must have been agonizing him the entire speech. And surely no one would have thought one lick less of him had he used the cane.
Leanne watched him for a moment, surprised at the surge of sympathy she felt for this man she hardly knew and hadn’t much liked at first, until the dean of students approached Captain Gallows. Instantly his demeanor returned to the dashing hero, shooting upright as if he hadn’t a pain or care in the world. That was more in line with the behavior she expected of him. So which was the real John Gallows—the arrogant, larger-than-life hero—or the proud, wounded, struggling man she’d caught a glimpse of the moment before? There was no way for her to tell now. The captain and the dean walked off together, and Leanne remembered there was a reception of sorts for him afterward. As one of the Red Cross knitting teachers, she’d been invited. She hadn’t planned on going at first, for she hadn’t a taste for such things and it would be awkward since Ida hadn’t been asked. She’d go, now, if just to help make up her mind as to what kind of man he truly was.
“You know, I think I will go to that reception after all,” she said as casually as she could to Ida as they packed up their things to exit the hall.
“Well, now, who wouldn’t?” Ida didn’t seem the least bit slighted by her lack of an invitation. Some days Leanne wished for Ida’s confidence and, as Papa put it, “thick skin.” Instead of sulking, Ida only offered her an oversize wink. “Tell the good captain he can recruit me any day,” she whispered, visibly pleased at Leanne’s startled reaction.
“It’s a good thing I won’t and he can’t,” she replied, hoping no one else heard the scandalous remark.
“Says you.” Ida laughed, and sauntered away.
Yes, he was a hero. Yes, he was vital to the cause. Still, Leanne couldn’t see how even the most rousing of Gallows’s speeches could overcome her distaste for the man’s monumental air of self-importance.
Chapter Four
Leanne was just barely ten minutes into the reception, not yet even to the punch bowl, when Gallows swooped up behind her and took her by the elbow.
“Save me,” he whispered as he nodded to the library shelf to their left. “Pull a book off the shelf this very minute and save me from Professor Mosling, I implore you.” She couldn’t help but comply, for Leanne knew that calling Professor Mosling long-winded was an understatement. Mosling thought very highly of himself and his opinions, and shared them freely with unsuspecting victims. At great length and with considerable detail. Last month she’d been cornered for three quarters of an hour by the man as he shared his views on the use of domestic wool for socks. Mosling raised an arm with an all-too-hearty “There you are, Gallows!” Leanne snatched the largest book within reach and angled her shoulders away from the man.
“Really, Captain Gallows, there is much to be said for—” she realized in her haste she’d neglected to even scan the massive volume’s title “—Atlantic Shipping Records of the Cooper River. I find it a most fascinating subject,” she improvised, finding herself stumped.
“As do I,” replied Captain Gallows, his eyes filled with surprise and a healthy dose of amusement even though his voice was earnest. “Please, do go on.”
Go on? How on earth could she “go on”? “As I’m sure you know, the Cooper River runs right through Charleston, providing a major seaport thoroughfare…” It felt absurd; she was stringing together important-sounding words with almost no sense of their content. Still, Gallows’s eyes encouraged her, looking as if she was imparting the most vital knowledge imaginable.
“Do forgive me,” Gallows said to the professor, “but I simply cannot tear myself away from Miss Sample’s fascinating explanation.”
The ruse worked, for Mosling huffed a little, straightened his jacket and then seemed to find another suitable target within seconds. “Oh, yes, well, another time then.”
“Indeed,” said Captain Gallows, actually managing to sound sorry for the loss despite the relief she could see in his eyes. “Very soon.”
As soon as Mosling had left, Gallows took the huge text from her and began to laugh. “Atlantic Shipping Records? A most unfortunate choice. I could probably better explain these to you than the other way around.”
Leanne raised an eyebrow, not particularly pleased to be roped into such a scheme. “I was rather in a hurry and quite unprepared.”
“Perhaps I should have asked you to teach me knitting.” He looked as if he’d rather read Atlantic Shipping Records from cover to cover than take up the craft—as if he found it a frilly pastime better suited to grandmothers in rocking chairs.
“Many men have, you know. There was a time, centuries ago, when knitting was purely a man’s craft. And you can’t argue that every hand is needed. Perhaps we can arrange a lesson for you yet.” She couldn’t for the life of her say where such boldness had come from. Perhaps Ida was rubbing off on her.
“If anyone could…” The fact that he didn’t finish the sentence made it all the more daunting.
Leanne chose to shift the subject. “You gave a stunning presentation, Captain. The boys were on their feet cheering by the end of things.”
He leaned against the bookcase, and while she had the urge to ask him if he’d like to sit down, she had the notion that he wouldn’t take to such a consideration of his injury. “You stopped knitting there for a moment. I saw you.”
He made it sound as if her pause revealed secrets. “I was inspired. It is a harrowing tale.”
A flicker of a shadow came over his eye at her use of the word. Only for a sliver of a second, however, and it was so instantly replaced by a cavalier expression that it made her wonder if it had been there at all. “Ah, but so heroic and inspiring.”
“It makes it unfair that your leg pains you so much.” She hadn’t planned on making such a remark, but somehow it jumped out of her.
She expected him to give some dashing dismissal of the judgment, but he paused. He looked at her as if she were the first person ever to say such a thing, which couldn’t possibly be true. “Why?” He had the oddest tone of expression.
“I…” she fumbled, not knowing the answer herself. “I should think it a terrible shame. It seems a very brave thing you’ve done, and I would like to think God rewards bravery, not punishes it.”
“God? Rewarding me for being caught on a failing airship?” He laughed, but far too sharply. “The very thought.” He took the book from her, snapping it shut before replacing it on the shelf between them. “You have a very odd way of thinking, Nurse Sample.”
What did the captain think of his “fate”? Or his Creator? Did he even acknowledge Him? Unsure what to make of Gallows, Leanne pressed her point. “Odd? By thinking God is just or by thinking you brave?”
That got a hearty laugh from him. He spun his cane in his hand, almost like a showman, and stared at her a long, puzzling moment before he said, “Both.”
She wasn’t going to let him go at a clever dodge like that. “How so?”
Gallows’s face told her the conversation had ventured into difficult territory. “Are you always so pointed in your conversations?”
“Would you prefer we return to Atlantic Shipping Records? Or I could get the good professor to rejoin us…”
“No,” he cut in. He pulled a hand over his chin, groping for his answer while she patiently waited. Leanne found herself genuinely curious—and surprisingly so—as to what this man truly thought of himself when no one else was watching. “Wars need heroes,” he said eventually, “and those of us in the wrong place at the wrong time find ourselves drafted into that need. I’ve been too busy staying alive and playing hero to worry about who did the drafting or why. I don’t ponder whether I limp from justice or bravery, Nurse Sample. I just try to walk.”
His smile had a dark edge to it as he turned and walked away. With an odd little catch under her chest, Leanne noted that while he hid it extremely well, he still limped.
* * *
Ashton Barnes was a big, barrel-chested man who barked orders with the intensity of cannon-fire. He’d been one of Colonel Gallows’s protégés, rising fast and far to head up a logistical marvel like Camp Jackson even though he was barely pushing fifty. The general’s balding head stubbornly held on to what was left of his white-blond hair, the rounded pate in stark contrast to the rectangular metal glasses he wore. Fond of cigars, hunting and blueberry pie, Barnes was the kind of larger-than-life commander a bursting enterprise like Camp Jackson required.
Every soldier knew Barnes as firm but fair, and even though one might consider Barnes “a friend of the family,” John knew better than to think his last name bought him any leverage with the general. His talents earned him the man’s eye, not his pedigree, and John had seen Barnes at the rally, sizing up his performance from the back corner. He’d known the job they’d given him to do yesterday, and he’d done it well, so John wasn’t surprised to receive a summons to the general’s office this morning.
While he also prided himself on good soldiering, drama and attention were John’s strongest weapons to wield. He’d known within the first ten minutes how to draw this particular audience into the cause. Really, what young man doesn’t want a chance at heroism? Doesn’t yearn to know he’s stepped into the destiny life handed him? The kindling was dry—it was only his job to strike the match and set it aflame. In his more whimsical moments, John sometimes wondered if his father was at all amused that John’s “gift for instigation,” as Mama always put it, had been put to such a virtuous use.
No sense pondering that. Father was undoubtedly back in Charleston and it was General Barnes’s approval that mattered at the moment. When John walked into the general’s office and stood at attention, Barnes gave him a broad smile. “Outstanding speech. I could have piled all the ‘Four Minute Men’ into one uniform and not done as well. We had two dozen new recruits before lunchtime today, and while I haven’t talked to the navy I suspect they did just as well.” He gestured toward the chair that fronted his desk. “At ease, son, get off that leg of yours.”
John settled into the chair. “I’m glad to see you pleased, sir.” He’d always liked Ashton Barnes, but he was smart enough to be a little afraid of the man and the power he wielded.
“I am. I am indeed. I knew you were the man for the job.” Usually a straight shooter, John didn’t like the way the general watched the way he laid his cane against the chair. Why did people always stare at the cane? Why never the leg? Or just at him? The general at least did him the courtesy of acknowledging the injury. That reaction was always easier to bear than those who did a poor job of pretending to ignore it, like his father. Barnes nodded toward John’s outstretched right leg. “How is the leg getting on?”
John stared down at the stiff limb. It never bent easily anymore so he’d stopped trying in cases where there was enough room. “Fine, sir. I’m better than most.”
“I suspect you are.” Barnes took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like to see our boys coming home in pieces like this. Victory can’t come soon enough, in my book.”
The general had handed him the perfect opening, and John was going to take it. “I mean to go back, sir. As soon as I can.”
“So your father tells me.”
So Father had spoken with Barnes. John had suspected it—expected it, actually, given the colonel’s clear-but-unspoken distaste for his current assignment. It struck John as ironic that Oscar Gallows’s long, deep shadow lent John half the “marquee value” his current speeches produced. The Gallows family name got him this job as much as his silver tongue. After all, Gallowses were pillars of Charleston society long before John had been lauded as a hero.
While it goaded John that his father had lobbied the general behind his back, anything that sped up his return to combat was a welcome development. “I don’t think it’ll take more than three or four weeks here for me to finish healing up. Maybe two if that brute of a therapist has me doing any more exercises. I’m grateful for the chance to toot the army’s horn, but with all due respect, I’d rather be back in France.”
The general steepled his hands. “Much as I’d like to appease your father, or you, your doctors haven’t cleared you for duty.”
He didn’t say “yet.” John didn’t like the omission one bit. Father probably caught that one as well, which may have been why he’d skipped the rally. Wounded out of the service wouldn’t play well with Oscar Gallows.
It didn’t play well with him, either. He’d throw the cane away tomorrow and grit his teeth until they fell out before he’d listen to any doctor tell him he couldn’t go back up and finish what he’d started. He had no intention of being left behind among the wounded, even if others thought him a hero. His heroism was unfinished business, as far as John was concerned. He needed to be back in the fight, not sitting over here spouting rousing tales while his battalion earned a victory. “They will soon enough. Sooner on your recommendation, sir.”
“I won’t say you haven’t been valuable overseas, but you’re of no value at all if that leg fails you when you need it most. I admire your eager spirit, John—” Barnes knew what he was doing when he intentionally used his given name like a friend of the family would— “but don’t let your impatience get you killed. You’ll go back when you’re ready, and I’m of no mind to send you off a minute before.”
It was the closest thing to a promise he’d had yet; John wasn’t going to let this “friend of the family” go at a mere hint. “But you’ll send me? When I’m ready?” He was ready now.
“I imagine I will, yes.” He spoke like a true commander—leaving himself the tiniest of escapes just in case.
He may never get another chance like this. The colonel had obviously asked for it. He’d asked for it. He’d just given the army several weeks of record-breaking recruitment speeches. John stood, without his cane. He extended his hand. “I’d like your word on it, sir. I’ll give speeches until I’m blue in the face, I’ll rouse up recruits out of the sand, but I want to know you’ll send me back when I’m ready.”
Barnes hesitated for a moment, John’s message of “I will hold you to this” coming through loud and clear. “Very well,” he said after an insufferable pause. They shook on it. John had his guarantee. He wouldn’t end the war as a campaign poster. He’d go back where he belonged and make a name for himself on the battlefield, where it really mattered. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’d say you’re welcome, Captain, but I’m not so sure.”
John allowed himself the luxury of picking his cane back up, even though it shot pain like a bolt of lightning through his hip to bend over so far. “I’m sure enough for the both of us,” he said when he was upright again, making sure none of the strain showed in his voice.
“You should know it would help, Gallows, if I could have your cooperation on a—shall we say an unconventional little campaign of ours.”
Now it came out. Give and get, push and pull. Why was he surprised the general had a trick up his striped sleeve? “Anything you need, sir.”
“Don’t be so agreeable, son, until you’ve heard what it is the Red Cross has in mind.”
John sat back down again, the ache in his leg now matched by a lump in his throat.
Chapter Five
A few days after the rally, Leanne sat in the hospital meeting room helping an older nurse struggle through her first cumbersome knitting stitches. “Yes—” she smiled at the confused grimaces given by many of the women around her “—it does feel funny at first. Give it a few days, and you’ll be amazed how quickly you take to it.”
Another nurse held up the yarn Leanne had distributed at the beginning of class. “It’s drab stuff, don’t you think? I’d rather go to war in red socks. Or blue.”
“As long as they’re warm and dry, we don’t much care what color they are,” came a voice from behind Leanne’s shoulder. She turned to find Captain Gallows poking his head into the room.
“Captain Gallows, have you decided to take up knitting?”
“Well, since my job is to encourage, I thought I shouldn’t stop at soldiers.” He stepped into the room and leaned against the doorway. Leanne suspected he was well aware of the fine figure he cut standing in such a cavalier manner. Around her, stitching ground to a halt. The young woman Leanne was currently sitting next to actually sighed and dropped her knitting to her lap. “Knit as if our lives depended upon it, ladies,” Gallows said with a gallant flair, “for I dare say they do. An army fights on its feet, you know.”
“Y’all sound like the Red Cross poster,” a hospital cook to Leanne’s left remarked, holding up the very beginning of a sock.
“Good for me.” He grinned. “That means I’ve gotten it right. It seems I am your poster boy. Or will be, next week.”
“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.”
Leanne handed him the yarn and needles, and despite the fact that they had looked so enormous in her own grasp, they looked nearly small in his. He turned the objects over in his hands, peering at them as if with the right look they’d give up secrets. He shifted his eyes from the dull green yarn to look at her. They were an exquisite indigo, his eyes. A deep-sea blue, like mussel shells or the last hour of a summer’s evening. “Wait a minute, there are four needles here. My mother knits with only two. You’re not pulling one over on me or anything, are you? It is easy?”
So his mother knitted. She tried to imagine little Johnny Gallows sitting at his mother’s feet while she knitted him a Christmas sweater and couldn’t bring up the image. The man in front of her looked like he’d never been small—or innocent—a day in his life.
He certainly looked far from childlike now. It was as if his personality only intensified the closer one stood. And he was so fond of standing close. She moved her chair back an inch. “Oh, some take to it naturally.” She made her voice sound more casual than she felt. If he’d noticed her retreat, he didn’t show it. “Minnie Havers,” she went on, “why, she had her first sock done almost within the week. Took to it like a fish to water. Others, well, I’d say it’s more of a struggle. And no, Captain, I quite assure you all socks are knitted with four needles like these. Surely a man of your aptitude should master it in no time.”
John held up the needles. “No time, hmm?”
“Most do. Well, most women, that is. I haven’t taught my first class of soldiers yet. Those start next week.”
“I am your first male student?” He enjoyed that far too much.
Leanne cleared her throat rather than answer. “I find it’s a matter of dexterity. Do you have a great deal of dexterity, Captain Gallows?”
She regretted the question the moment she asked it. “I’ve been told I have the hands of a surgeon.” He said it in a way that made Leanne sure she didn’t want him to elaborate.
“Let’s get started.” Leanne had never actually taught a man to knit before. Normally it involved a lot of her holding the yarn and needles together with the student, repositioning fingers, adjusting the tension of the yarn. Touching. She’d never given it a moment’s thought before, but now it meant touching a man’s hands. This man’s hands. The air between them was charged enough as it was. It seemed foolish, but Leanne was afraid to touch him. It would cross some kind of line she hadn’t even realized was there.
She attempted, in response, to teach him without touching his hands. This resulted in nothing short of disaster. His frustration built on her tension, tangling their composure tighter than the yarn in their fingers.
“It feels like wrestling a porcupine,” Captain Gallows grunted when a needle slipped through the stitches and fell to the carpet at his feet. “The annoying little sticks won’t stay put.” She knew it would pain him to reach over and fetch the needle, so she bent and picked it up as quickly as she could. The look on his face—reflecting the limitation she knew he would never speak of—almost made her shudder. Captain Gallows was obviously used to mastery of anything he attempted, and the effort required to do what he clearly deemed a simple task simmered dark behind his eyes.
“It’s much more difficult for larger fingers.” While she’d meant the remark to soothe his feelings, it did just the opposite. He looked as if he’d snarl at the yarn within minutes. A shameful corner of her heart enjoyed watching the arrogant captain meet his match, but the part of her that could see through his bravado winced at causing him further pain. No one likes to have their weaknesses displayed. “You know,” she confessed in the hopes of easing his nerves, “you were right to keep this first lesson between us.” Under any other circumstances the phrase “between us” would have been harmless. When “between us” meant between her and Captain John Gallows, however, the words darted between them like an electrical charge.
He grunted again. “Ease up, Captain. Hold that yarn any tighter and you’ll lose circulation in your fingers.”
He dropped the knitting to his lap and closed his eyes. “If I’m going to make a complete fool of myself in front of you, we might as well drop the formalities. Let’s just watch John Gallows fail at knitting for the moment, rather than the spectacle of Captain Gallows botching needlecraft, shall we?”
Leanne wasn’t sure what drove her to lead his hands back down to the needles, and gently position them in the correct way. It wasn’t a wise choice. They were tanned, strong hands; large and well-groomed. It was the warmth of them that struck her most of all. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her. Perhaps because it served as a reminder that he was human, flesh and blood with fears and feelings like any other man. She’d forgotten that he’d been dragged into this bargain as much as she. He shifted his weight in a way that told her his leg was starting to ache, but anyone could see he wasn’t giving in until he’d done a respectable stretch of successful stitches. He was making a genuine effort.
She tried again to reposition his fingers. Some odd little shudder went through his hands when she touched him. Or was it her hands that shuddered? Or had she merely felt a tremble but not seen it? She forced a casualness to her touch as she showed him again how to wrap the yarn around his right index finger—the one with the long scar down the side. “You don’t need to strangle it, Captain, just let this finger do the work.”
“John,” he corrected as he fumbled his way through a stitch—labored but correctly done. “At least off camera.”
“Well, John.” The familiarity felt more daring than she liked, even though she worked to hide it from her voice. “It feels odd to everyone at first, not just war heroes.” John rolled his shoulders and scowled as he produced a second stitch—also correct but less forced. “See? There’s no need to mount a battle here.” She leaned over to adjust his far hand again, catching a whiff of his aftershave. He smelled exotic and sophisticated.
“This must get easier.” She couldn’t tell if it was a question or a demand.
“Yes.” She felt the first smile of the afternoon sneak across her lips. “It does.”
He looked up at her for the first time. Were she knitting at the moment, she would have surely dropped a stitch. He would have enjoyed that. “It must. I’ve seen young boys do this.”
“That is the idea, isn’t it?” And it was. It wasn’t just some general’s folly to decide to convince America’s boys to knit. The clicking needles of American women and girls simply weren’t enough. The Red Cross was so desperate for woolen socks that this “farfetched scheme” to recruit boys was, in fact, important to brave men risking their lives across the ocean.
“And you’ll teach injured soldiers to do this?” he asked. “To pass the time in the hospital as well as meet the need for socks?” What he hadn’t realized was that five tidy stitches had worked their way onto his needle while he spoke. While many might accuse John Gallows of great arrogance, his only knitting sin was the universal fault of trying too hard.
“Yes, that’s the idea. It’s been done successfully in some other hospitals, so I am eager to try it here.”
“Done successfully, you say? Well, then, I simply can’t allow this to elude me, can I? My own grandmother,” he went on, “who can barely see well enough to know which Gallows is who, can do this.” Three more stitches.
“Your grandmother knits?” Keep him talking, Leanne urged herself, realizing that talking was the key to keeping him from overthinking the simple stitches.
“Constantly. I have several holiday sweaters in the most atrocious patterns you can imagine. And a few scarves that could scare away the enemy.” He looked down, a little stunned to realize he’d made it all the way to the end of the double-pointed needle. “Now what?”
She didn’t have to force herself to take his hands and show him how to switch to the next needle. And while she didn’t dare look up at him while she touched those hands, she could feel his smile behind her. “See, just like that. All lined up like soldiers, they are. Well done.”
He said nothing until the silence forced her to look up at him. When she did, Leanne felt it burrow its way under her ribs and steal her breath. “Well taught, Nurse Sample.”
“Leanne,” she heard herself say, but it was as if Ida’s daring nature had inhabited her voice. “Off camera.”
Chapter Seven
“One more inch…just one inch farther…ugh!” John growled in exasperation at the joints that would not bend to his will. It was as if the plaster cast on his leg had never come off—the stubborn limb refused to regain the needed flexibility. He gripped the bench harder and set his teeth against the pain, leaning into another push. It was probably no accident that the “reconstruction clinic,” the gymnasium on base that housed the staff and equipment designed to rehabilitate wounded soldiers, was olive-green rather than hospital white. To John, the gymnasium was no less a battlefield than the front line. It reminded him that he was a soldier—and that a soldier belonged on the front lines, where he intended to return as soon as possible, even if he had to thrash his leg into submission every step of the way.
“Whoa there, stallion. You’re not going to get what you want out of that leg by beating it up.” Dr. Charles Madison pushed John’s leg back down. John hated how easily the small doctor could do it, too. The weakness in his leg made him crazy, and Madison had a gift for showcasing just how much strength John had lost.
“It doesn’t bend a single inch farther this week.” Complaining felt childish, but John’s frustration stole his composure as easily as the dirigible stay lines had shredded his leg. Patience was not a virtue Gallows men either possessed or cherished. John pulled himself upright with something just short of a snarl.
“This isn’t the kind of thing that goes in a straight line.” Dr. Madison, his Bostonian accent sounding entirely too fatherly, sat down on the bench next to John. He set his clipboard down with a weariness that spoke do we have to go over this again? without words. “It’s going to be back-and-forth. And if you push it too far too fast, I promise you it will be more back than forth. Flex your foot.”
John shot him a look but obeyed. The doctor could make “flex your foot” sound like “go sit in the corner.”
“You’ve got more rotation than you did last week. You tore nearly every tendon from your hip down. It’s a wonder you’ve still got use of the leg at all, Gallows. Those tether lines could have ripped the whole thing off.”
“Yes, yes, I’m so fabulously fortunate.” John launched himself up off the bench and hobbled to the bars on the wall nearby. Did Madison think he didn’t know that? And if those lines—those horrid steel lines that felt like they were slicing his leg off from the inside out while he dangled—had severed his leg, where would he have been? Falling thousands of feet out of the sky to drown in the ocean. If he lived through the fall. The mere thought of that terrifying, helpless hanging sensation, those minutes of absolute dread that felt like hours of twisting over what he was certain would be the site of his death, sent that icy sensation through his chest again. He hated this sniper-fire fear of that memory which could attack him without warning. A wrong comment or even the slightest hint of falling—and he slipped all the time these days—would catapult him back to those moments in the sky. Somehow he knew that if he ever had to hang upside down again for any reason—some exercise or calisthenic someone dreamed up to rehabilitate him—he’d stop breathing altogether. Die of remembered fright on the spot. Just the kind of way every war hero ought to behave.
“For a talented spokesman, I wonder sometimes if I ought to punch you for the thoughtless things you say.” Madison cornered him against the wall and pinned him with severe eyes. “Look around you, son. Wake up and see just how fortunate you are. That imperfect leg you so despise is at least still there. You’ve your wits about you and the admiration of many. Take a walk with me over to another hall of the hospital—the one with no visitors—and see some of the ghosts we can barely call men. Complain to them as they sit in chairs mumbling because not only their arm but their mind is gone.”
John was in no mood to be smothered by the silver lining of his own survival. Madison didn’t get like this often, and it bothered John to no end when the doctor lectured him on his advantages. He needed no reminding. “I know I ought to be glad I’m alive,” he mumbled with reluctance. That was, in fact, part of the problem. Part of the thing niggling at the back of his mind, taunting him on the edges of sleep. He was alive. He was fortunate. More than that, he was lauded and admired. He just never felt like he earned it. And that wasn’t the sort of thing one mentioned to anyone. Humility was one thing—and another one of those virtues not especially prized by Gallows men. Feeling like a fraud? That was another. “I let my frustration get the better of my mouth.”
John had been down that particular hospital hallway. He knew soldiers who, once maimed, wanted nothing more than to get back out on the front lines so they could be shot down and end their misery. They wouldn’t put their families through the shame of suicide, yet they couldn’t face the prospect of a lifetime without a limb or an eye or whatever. Those men clamored back to the battlefield with a dangerous “death wish.”
He wasn’t one of those. John wanted back in the battle so he could prove to himself he was the hero everyone seemed to think he was. Whatever he did—and honestly, he didn’t even clearly remember most of it—up there to those dirigible lines was sheer, terrorized survival, not heroism. Grab this or fall. Secure that or risk it ripping off and taking him with it. He climbed out onto that airship not because he wanted to be brave, but because it was try something or die. He was working only to save himself, and that other lives would benefit from his actions was the last thing on his mind. That wasn’t the kind of thing one ought to get a medal for. The fellows who had risked their lives to pull in wounded mates, who went back out into gunfire to drag their captain to safety? Those were the men who should be making speeches and wearing medals. He wasn’t here stirring up patriotism because he was brave. He was here because his name was Gallows, he had a silver tongue, took a good photograph and had somehow managed not to die.
* * *
Ida tossed her nurse’s hat down on her bureau. “You know, I thought I was an admirer of the male physiology.”
Leanne looked up from the outline of reconstructive exercises she’d been studying. “You’re not?”
“I think how God put us together is one of the most amazing things ever. Y’all would think there’s no way to make it tedious.” Ida leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling, her long auburn mane tumbling down behind her. She had a gift for striking dramatic poses.
They sat in their shared bedroom at the Red Cross House. It was comfortably furnished by army standards, with a pair of beds, bureaus and desks much like the dormitory rooms she’d had at the university. It had color and comfort, two things the bland army housing clearly lacked. She found she couldn’t fully approve of the way the U.S. Army piled soldiers into barracks that looked more like hospital wards than homes. The standardized, militarized buildings utterly lacked the pleasant feel of the Red Cross House. Not that the Red Cross House was perfect, but Leanne had come to appreciate privacy for the dear commodity it was in military life. It made her grateful she enjoyed Ida’s company so much. “I take it you’re not fond of your current rotation?”
“I have babysat my five-year-old cousins and heard less complaining. And I declare, I could be tending a ship of pirates and hear more civilized conversation. To think I thought being surrounded by soldiers would be a good thing!” She flung out one hand as if addressing the universe. “I had to smack one private’s hand three times for attempting to get…too private.”
Leanne laughed at Ida’s pun. “Your sense of humor serves you well.” Ida’s vibrancy made her a grand friend to have in trying times. “I imagine you’re just the kind of care some of those boys need. Have you drawn any of them yet?” Ida was an immensely talented artist. She’d tacked a few of her better sketches up on the wall of their room and Leanne thought they rivaled some of the things she’d seen framed on the best walls in Charleston.
Ida opened one eye from her dramatic recline and shot Leanne a look. “I have not. They don’t merit my talents. Truly, I’m not askin’ for chivalry. Just a little civility would be fine with me. Goodness knows, with the work I put into seeing them healed and healthy, it’s the least they could do. A man’s broad shoulder is one of the finest things God has ever made, but I had to muck out the gouges in one today that rivaled a Tennessee swamp. By rights, he should owe me nothing less than a fine dinner for my troubles.”
“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.”
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