Free Homefront Hero by Allie Pleiter

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
    J ohn 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