Homefront Hero. Allie Pleiter

      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