Homefront Hero (9 page)

She had him. And he had her. He hadn’t enjoyed anything this much since France. “Please ask God to stop popping ideas into your head. I fear I won’t survive the next one.”

Chapter Twelve

L
eanne turned slightly, watching how the fringe of the delicate champagne underskirt swished elegantly. It made the most delightful sound as it moved beneath the smooth rose overskirt. She was nearly ready for the officers’ ball.

She’d owned the rose-and-white cameo for years, but it sat at her neck with a new regal air. Ida had loaned her some pearl ear bobs and pulled up Leanne’s hair in a way that set them off beautifully. “I know Captain Gallows is a handsome fellow, but who knew it went deeper than that?” Ida said as she tucked a cream rose into Leanne’s hair.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, I’m no expert on such matters, but I do know it takes far more than a handsome face to catch your fancy. There must be a fair amount behind those gorgeous eyes.”

It was unnerving to have someone else recognize the tumult going on inside her. “Pardon?”

Ida sat back on one hip. “You really think I didn’t know? Honey, it’s all over your face every time that man walks in the room. I know you try to hide it—he does, too—but neither of you are having much success. And tonight, why, you’re fairly glowing.”

Leanne felt her face flush. “I…”

Ida set down the hairbrush. “Relax. There’s no shame in enjoying the attentions of a handsome man. Half of Columbia would line up to be in your place. I’ve never thought we had much choice in where our hearts landed, anyways.”

Leanne turned to her friend. “My heart? He would not be the one my heart would choose. And yet, in the past few days I’ve seen…compelling things in his nature. It’s as if I can’t help it—I see too deeply into his character. And he into mine. But, Ida, why on earth would I have such a response to a man without faith? I can’t have a future with such a man.”

“How do you know he’s got no faith?” When Leanne raised a dubious eyebrow, Ida continued, “Well, yes, I know he acts like a rollicking fellow on the outside, but if you say he goes deeper than that, why not straight-out ask him?”

Standing and straightening her skirts, Leanne eyed herself in the mirror. Her dress was stunning, her hair lovely, the evening air was perfect but none of these things explained why Leanne could not squelch the thrill she felt this evening. Like a princess. A princess with entirely the wrong prince. “I don’t have to.” She sighed, fingering the cameo. “We’ve spoken of it directly. I believe he admires my faith, that much is true, but he surely does not share it.”

“Gracious, Leanne, it’s a ball, not a marriage proposal. You said he asked for your help in something—” for Leanne would not break John’s confidence about the waltz “—and you’re helping. What would he learn about God if you turned him down?” Ida helped Leanne into her shawl, sighing her approval as she cast her gaze from head to foot. “Perfection.” She handed Leanne her evening bag. “Maybe it isn’t the faith he
has
that’s important here, but the faith he
could
have.” Ida chuckled a bit. “Why, could you imagine what God could do with a fellow like that once He got through to him?”

She’d had the same thought dozens of times since meeting John Gallows, and it hadn’t rendered her attraction any less dangerous.

It was the oddest thing to watch John turn as she entered the parlor. His entire countenance changed, as if someone had just sent an electric current through him. Most unnerving of all was the knowledge that the “current” had been the sight of her. She could understand the shock, however, for no less than twice the voltage seemed to shoot through her at the sight of him.

John was in the same dashing dress uniform he had worn for his presentation—hung with medals and strung with gold cords so that he looked every inch the hero—but it seemed to have double the effect on her this time. Maybe because now she knew more about the man under all those very fine trappings. He had his hat tucked under his elbow, so that the glossy curves of his hair picked up the flicker of the lights behind him. He looked at her stunned as if they’d never met, and yet smiling as though greeting a long-lost friend. She was sure she had the same expression on her own face, for John looked like the John Gallows she knew, and then again like the most handsome hero God ever created. Ida sighed a swooning “My, my, my!” behind her. Some small part of her was glad they were friends, glad she’d been privy to his weaknesses, for had she met him in all his glory like this she would surely have been starstruck.

“I’d never have thought I’d be so happy to reach a gusset,” he said, reaching into his pocket to show the nine inches of ribbing she’d required of him. In her fluster over the party, she’d completely forgotten the bargain she’d struck. John Gallows was very good at dissolving her sensibilities. “I’d have hated to miss this.” He walked toward her, the cane making him look like some grand English lord. “You look absolutely lovely.”

He truly meant it, she could see it in his eyes, but he paid the compliment with such oversize gallantry that Leanne was sure she was more pink than her dress. After the long moment it took to find her voice, she managed a “Thank you.”

“Tonight will be a new experience for me,” he began as he laid the sock on the hall table, donned his cap and extended his arm. “I’m not accustomed to everyone’s eyes being on someone else. I find I can’t decide if you’ve foiled my plan or helped it immensely.”

She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, feeing for all the world like Cinderella. “Captain Gallows, you overestimate my appeal.”

“Oh, no,” he said with a look that made Leanne’s insides flutter in ten directions, “I don’t believe I do.” Ida opened the hall doors for them, grinning entirely too widely as she ushered them into the golden stillness of the fall evening. The weather was perfect beyond measure, and while they both paused at the top of the Red Cross House stairs to take in the glory of the evening, his gaze came to rest unapologetically on her. “I talked Nelson out of calisthenics today,” he said as he gripped the railing to work his way carefully down the stairs. “I told him I’d shift my weight all afternoon and that you and I would walk to the Assembly Hall. In dress boots at that, so it ought to count for six laps if not seven.”

He looked steeled for battle, so determined to reach the goal he’d set for himself that she felt guilty for her own doubts. It was a perfect evening for walking, but wouldn’t that run the risk of taxing his leg in advance of the ball? “Are you sure you want to walk?”

“If you had any plans to push me in one of those horrid wheelchairs, I think I’d sooner crawl.” He was trying to make a joke, but the edge of disdain in his words gave him away. He loathed this weakness. In many ways, John had no more made peace with his injuries than troubled Private Carson had. “Besides, why on earth would I want to lessen the time I get to spend alone with you?”

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and he rearranged his stance with a dramatic flair, as if they were stepping off into a parade. She half expected him to wave to a crowd she could not see. “Captain Gallows, do you ever come offstage?”

“Not if it can be helped.” He twirled his cane before launching them forward. “And you will call me John for this entire lovely walk or we’ll turn back right here. And don’t get all worrisome about my stamina. I’ve already planned to stop and rest at least twice.”

“A wise choice.”

“Actually I’m telling myself it’s simply because the sunset is so grand. I expect you to play along.” He puffed up his decorated chest and did a spot-on imitation of Dr. Madison’s Bostonian accent. “No use resisting. It’s for my medical benefit and I am a hero you know.”

“Does everyone always do your bidding?”

“Well—” his smile turned from the manufactured one to a grin of genuine warmth “—I am
knitting,
so what does that tell you?”

She laughed, once again enjoying the thought that she may have been among the first to best John Gallows at his own game. “That God is mighty indeed.”

He did not offer one of his clever comebacks. They walked in companionable silence for a minute or so, and the glorious washes of amber painting the sky did indeed remind her of God’s own glory.
“The Heavens declare the glory of God.”
She sighed without thinking.

His own sigh held much less reverence. “Do you attribute everything to the Almighty?”

“I suppose I do. Does that bother you?” She watched in admiration as the breeze played with the fringe of her skirt. Finer ladies would have balked at the prospect of traveling to the party on foot, but she was glad for the chance. Walking—even their slow, laborious laps—had become part of their relationship. She believed they had their best conversations when walking or knitting. Truth or difficult subjects were always best conversed when there was some activity to focus one’s attention.

“It baffles me, more like it.” He looked at her with narrowed eyes.

She thought of Ida’s comment about what feats God could accomplish if he ever got through to a man like John Gallows. Even if it were true, it was a precarious hook on which to hang her hope’s affections. “I’m not likely to stop, even for you.”

“It’s not just preaching—you really see Him in everything, don’t you?”
Baffled
truly did capture his expression.

“Even in you.” She wanted to grab the words out of the air and shoo them away the minute they popped out of her mouth. Ida’s fool notions had run away with her composure. Leanne stared down at her slippers, mortified, until John reached out and tilted her chin up to face him. It was far too private a gesture for such a public place, and her face tingled with heat.

Worst of all was the look on his face; the notion pleased him. Immensely, from the look of it. “I suspect that’s why I find you so delightfully annoying. You do always look as if you’ve just unearthed some new virtue out of me. Have you any idea how disconcerting that is?”

Disconcerting was an apt description. John was disconcerting beyond measure. She began to wonder if tonight had been a mistake. With the fancy dress and the dashing hero in his dress uniform, she’d started to feel too much like Cinderella…and there was no happy ending to be had in this fairy tale. If John succeeded in this show of strength he planned in front of the general—and Leanne was fairly certain he would, since she knew him well enough now to know that John Gallows would reach his goals or die trying—then he might soon find himself sent back overseas as he’d planned. The brief interlude between them would be over and forgotten.

Guard yourself and your heart,
she told herself.
You aren’t going to the ball to be wooed, or dazzled or swept off your feet. You are here as his friend—and his nurse—to help him because you said you would.
That was all—all there was, and all there could be.

They walked on for another block—the second of six, for the base was a large complex—and she could feel his gait stiffening. Pointing to a bench just ahead, she manufactured a wince and said, “Oh, bother, I’ve got a pebble in my slipper. Could we sit down over there?”

* * *

John stopped, speared by the transparency of what she was doing. “Don’t do that!” he snapped at her.

“What?”

Did she actually think he couldn’t see through her ruse? Didn’t she know that he was absolutely sick to death of people trying to pamper him with weaknesses invented to nullify his?

“Don’t coddle me.” He barked it out far sharper than he would have liked; her eyes widened in a remorse he felt twisting under his ribs. “You’ve no more got a pebble in your shoe than I have a third leg.” His wounded dignity wouldn’t allow him to completely soften his words, but he tried. “I don’t want that, most especially from you.”

“I am sorry.” She looked down, and he wanted desperately to put his hand to her chin and tip her gaze back up to him again. Her kindness was a welcome sting.

“I’d like to sit down, Leanne, but I’d like to sit because
I
need it, not because you’ve decided I should.” Her honesty had become a precious commodity to him, refreshing in his posturing world of military hierarchies. “Will you grant me that? Grant me the honesty I like so much about you?” He gestured toward the bench, glad to have that over with.

“I suppose I could have just asked you if you were ready to sit down,” she offered as she arranged herself on the bench.

“Better still, just don’t concern yourself with it. I promise you, I’ll tell you when I need to stop.”

She gave him a sideways glance as her two rose slippers peeked out of her fringed skirt. Had she arranged them so evenly on purpose, or was she just that elegant in how she sat? “That’s not what you do in the gymnasium.”

“In the gymnasium, I’m under Madison’s harsh thumb. Tonight is purely in my realm.” Certainly she never dressed like this for the gymnasium. And while he thought she looked lovely even in her nurse’s uniform, he couldn’t help but be charmed by how transparently pleased she clearly was with how she looked in that dusty-rose color. A little smile would light on the corners of her face when she played with the lace at her sleeves. She reminded him of one of his little cousins, twirling in some new party frock. That had been part of his aim tonight, to spend time with her in his realm instead of under doctor’s orders or the tyranny of Red Cross knitting. “I can’t let you have the upper hand on every occasion, and you’ve no idea how skilled I am at punchbowl warfare.”

“Oh, I can easily guess. I’ve no doubt the army has the right man for the job.” She looked at him, one eye narrowed as if assessing a student’s progress. “Actually, for both jobs. I have to say I found the knitting photographs a cockeyed scheme at first, but I’ve come to see the brilliance in it.”