Homefront Hero

by Allie Pleiter

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She raised an inquiring eyebrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Anything you choose,” he said aloud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  John took a step away from her, pointing with new vigor. “Ah, so you do agree we annoy the Almighty?” He pivoted, as if to stride away in victory, momentarily forgetting his weak leg. The movement tripped him up, so that she had to catch his arm as he tipped against the wall of the gymnasium or he might have tumbled to the ground then and there. For a moment the cool mask was gone, replaced by a frustrated rage that stiffened him all over. For a split second he was hard and dark and dangerous, the kind of man who would smash something or put his fist through a wall. She almost let go of him, the glimpse frightened her so. Then, as if she’d imagined it all, he rearranged his body so that his leaning looked cavalier, lazy even, crossing his bad foot over the one now supporting his weight as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “And here I thought courtesy would prove no distraction. Nurse Sample, you outdo yourself.”

  The way he said distraction had a steely knife’s edge to it. A defensive blade brandished at her under a slick grin. Leanne didn’t know what to do with that. Despite his gift at annoying her, she had found herself actually looking forward to having a serious conversation with the captain. Her boldness in broaching the subject of her faith surprised even her as they walked. Normally, Leanne shied away from spiritual discussions, preferring her passions to rise only around her knitting needles. Where had this eagerness to challenge John Gallows’s faith—or lack of it—come from?

  Even more surprising was that the captain allowed it—at least for a moment or two. Then matters went too deep, and he had yanked the conversation back under his control.

  His statement was no compliment at all. “I…” No reply came to her.

  She waited, expecting him to gloss over the moment with another of his smooth comments, but he did not speak, either. His look just now as he stood there with what she suspected others would find a cocky grin, only warned her never to trip him up like that again. As if she’d intentionally gone past his facade, as if it were her fault her beliefs wouldn’t “square” with how he saw the world. As if the moment of weakness she’d just seen was an unforgivable sin—on his part and on hers.

  Which it wasn’t. A man of his influence—even a hardened soldier—wouldn’t shy from showing true anger or appropriate fear. Yet, John Gallows kept his mask of dashing mastery up everywhere but with her. She seemed to see underneath the mask with far too much ease. Why was that?

  Clearly he was wondering the same thing, if the hint of a glare behind his eyes said anything. And that was hardly fair. She’d not sought to deliberately expose the chinks in his armor. He had no right to blame her when she hadn’t even asked for this assignment.

  “If I am to walk you, Captain,” she said as coolly as she could manage given the firestorm in his eyes, “you’ll have to come off that wall.” To her great shock, she then offered him her elbow and her best Charleston hospitality smile. “Shall we?”

  Chapter Nine

  John hadn’t slept well. Leanne’s narrowed eyes, strong to the point of defiance, kept appearing behind his closed lids. He’d read her wrong, thought of her as an appealing, even engaging amusement while he worked to be well enough to return. He hadn’t planned on her being such a challenge. His good looks and silver tongue never rendered women much of a trial, and while he was never so much of a cad as to abuse these gifts, he wasn’t above leveraging them to his advantage. The fact that he didn’t seem to have much of an advantage over Leanne Sample, that she pushed back on his ideas with challenging ideas of her own that stole his sleep, was making him prickly and irritable. It was the creamy quality of her voice that clouded his thinking, he decided as he made his way to the gymnasium the next day for his morning therapy.

  Usually some form of weight-bearing torture came first, a half an hour or so of pain and sweat under the merciless hands of Nelson. Oh, he’d laugh and joke his way through it, but the truth of it was that the session hurt—a great deal—and the prospect of gentler therapy with the lovely Nurse Sample was the only enticement to keep his temper in check. Enduring laps around the track with her hurt just as much as Nelson’s “ministrations,” but they came with a far better view.

  Resigned to yet another round of “useful pain” as Dr. Madison liked to call it, John pushed open the doors of the reconstruction room to find Leanne waiting for him. She wore a broad smile—no, a triumphant grin. She stood in front of an arrangement of horizontal bars, the banisters used to aid soldiers in walking therapies, grouped together to form a small square. Nelson was standing by with an equally mischievous grin—something that looked out of place on his brute features—and a phonograph.

  “What have we here?”

  “I’ve invented a way to make this morning’s exercise much more pleasant.”

  John started to say something about her very presence accomplishing that already, but swallowed the remark as too flirtatious. That didn’t stop him from thinking it. Being grateful for it. He managed a nondescript “Really?” as he took off his cap and coat, hanging it on the rack. At least the presence of a lady meant he’d not be required to work up a sweat in his undershirt, which seemed to be Nelson’s methodology of choice.

  “You mentioned yesterday how difficult it is for you to shift weight, particularly stepping from side to side.”

  All he’d told her during their endless final lap was that he no longer danced as well as he did before. “I don’t recall putting it in such clinical terms.” Suddenly the phonograph made a disturbing sort of sense. “You don’t mean…?”

  “I do indeed. Today—with the approval of Dr. Madison, of course—your therapy is the waltz. Suitably adapted, I daresay, for your particular condition.” She ducked under the front banister to stand in the center of the small square, raising her hands in a presentational gesture that made him laugh. “Captain Gallows, may I have the honor of this dance?”

  Intriguing didn’t come close to covering what he felt about today’s therapy. “You know, I’m the one who’s supposed to do the asking.”

  “And when did you ever subscribe to convention?” She gestured him inside.

  Laying down his cane,
John ignored the pain that shot through his side as he ducked himself inside the tidy square of banisters. He’d have managed it even if it hurt ten times more than it did. “I take it Nelson and the phonograph serve as our dance band?”

  “You catch on quickly.” Hoping the smile on his face didn’t match the shameless grin he felt, John raised his arms to assume the standard ballroom dance position. She dodged out of his reach. “We’ll be going a bit more slowly than that at first. Arms on the railings, please.”

  “Well, that’s hardly fun.” He couldn’t help himself. Genuine amusement hadn’t buoyed him up like this in months.

  “Oh, this is not about fun.”

  “Says you.”

  “Concentration will be required.” She had her teacher voice on, the one she used in the Red Cross knitting classes, as she resolutely placed her hands on the railings to each side.

  John cleared his voice in mock seriousness, calculating how close he could position his hands to hers and still keep his balance. Yesterday he’d hated these bars. Today he rather liked them. “Of course.”

  “Just side to side at first, please.”

  “But you said I was to waltz.” It was childish to tease her like that, but she seemed to bring that out in him.

  She shot him a look that all-too-clearly said Would you like to return to pain with Nelson? Then she nodded her head toward one side of the box. “To your right.” She stepped to slide her foot and her body toward the bar on one side of the box. He did the same, despite the spike of pain it sent through his thigh. “Very good. Now your left.” He did as she asked, grateful that side produced much less pain. “Again.” They went through the clunky, side-to-side maneuver three more times until he could manage it with a bit of ease despite the pain. It took far longer than he would have liked.

  “Whose idea was this, in any case?” he said as they began the fourth repetition.

  “You may not like the answer to that question, Captain.” They swayed together to the left.