Off Limits (21 page)

Her father glared at him. He eyed him for a long moment. “I recognize you from the newspaper articles, McKenzie.” Vance flung his glare back to Alex. “What's he doing here, Alex?” he ground out.

Alex shut the door, feeling terribly torn. Her gaze moved to Jim, whose features had hardened—just as they had in the jungle of Vietnam. His eyes narrowed with an intensity that frightened her. Instinctively, Alex stepped between the two men. The indignation and rage in her father's face were unmistakable.

“I—”

“How could you let this cowardly bastard into your house?”

Jim's grip on Alex's trembling shoulder tightened. “Mr. Vance, why don't you let your daughter answer one question before you fire the next salvo?”

Hiram Vance's lips pulled away from his teeth. “Shut up.”

“Stop it!” Alex cried. She pulled from Jim's protective grasp and faced her father. “How dare you come in here like this! I haven't done anything wrong, Father. And don't you
dare
call Jim a coward. He—”

“I'm ashamed of you, Alex,” Hiram breathed savagely. “You're consorting with a lowlife!”

“I am not!” Alex sobbed.

“Alex,” Jim whispered harshly, “stand aside. This is between me and him.” Gently, he moved Alex to one side, his heart breaking to see her cry. He rounded on Vance.

“You have no right busting in here and yelling at your daughter, Mr. Vance, when it's me you really want.”

“I want
you
out of her life, McKenzie,” Hiram snarled. He looked over at the unmade bed. “And it's obvious you plan on hanging around for a while. Let me make this very clear. I don't like you, I don't like your kind, and you're not the right man for my daughter. Not now. Not ever.”

Jim controlled himself as never before. The congressman's face was a livid red. He saw the man's fists cocked, ready to strike him. “You don't run my life, Vance. And you don't run Alex's, either. She's old enough to make up her own mind about who she wants in her life.”

Alex felt buffeted by her father's attack. “H-how did you know Jim was here?”

Vance snorted violently. “I've had one of my assistants keeping tabs on him.” He glared over at McKenzie. “I'd hoped that intercepting those damned letters would do the trick—”

Alex gasped, her eyes becoming round. “You—you stopped my letters from reaching Jim?”

“That's right.”

“That's tampering with mail, Vance. You're supposed to be upholding this country's laws, not breaking them,” Jim countered.

“Where you're concerned, McKenzie, I'd stop at very little to make sure you stay out of my daughter's life.” His voice dropped into a sneer. “You're nothing but a dirt-poor Missouri hillbilly—barely a high school graduate. And you refused to fight for your country. I'm not going to allow my daughter to consort with a yellow belly like you—”

“Stop it!” Alex shrieked. She stabbed blindly at her father's chest with her index finger. “I don't care if he's poor! He's got more decency and better morals than you ever had, Father. And I don't care where he's from or what his damned school grades were! You're wrong about Jim not serving this country! How can you forget that he spent two years in Vietnam with the recons? How can you forget he's got two purple hearts and a silver star for bravery? Damn you,” she sobbed, backing away from him. “I see the good in Jim. You only want to see the bad!”

Hiram glowered at his daughter. “He's not good enough for a congressman's daughter. You can do better.”

“Get out, Father.” Alex stood rigidly, her voice oddly low and off-key. “Get out of my house. If you can't talk civilly and be mature about this, I don't want to speak to you anymore. Not until you calm down.”

Hiram put his hands on his hips. “You forget, Alex, it was my money that put you through nursing school. I paid for everything.”

“You don't own her, Vance,” Jim whispered caustically. “And if you think you can hang money over her head to make her come into line with your beliefs, I'll make damn sure every last cent is refunded to you no matter how long it takes.”

Hiram gave him a strange look. “What that hell are you talking about?”

Jim moved over and placed his arm around the distraught Alex. He ached for her. “My intentions toward Alex are honorable. I love her, and I intend to ask her to marry me.”

Alex took in a ragged breath and glanced up at Jim's grim features. The words she'd wanted to hear but never dared hope for had been spoken. She saw her father's eyes grow huge in disbelief.

“Alex?” Hiram demanded harshly, “is that true? Are you seriously thinking about marrying this—this coward?”

Her heart squeezed with such pain that it took everything Alex had to stand before her indignant father. She felt Jim's arm tighten around her, as if to give her silent support. “Father, I've loved Jim since I met him.”

“But look what he's done!” Vance roared.

A strange peace flooded Alex, as if all her fear suddenly dissolved. In its place was a sureness she'd never before experienced. “What's he done?” she quavered. “He's a man who has paid triple the price that anyone should going to war! He served with bravery and honor for two years before experiencing a tragedy beyond most people's worst nightmare. War did it, Father. Jim didn't. Please, can't you understand that he—”

“No, Alex,” Jim said thickly, “don't try and defend me. It's no use.” He held Hiram's glare. “You think whatever you want of me, Mr. Vance. I love your daughter with my life. But I doubt there's any way I could prove it to your satisfaction.”

“I can't believe this, Alex,” Vance rattled. “You're actually going to marry him?”

Jim looked down at Alex's taut, washed-out features and saw the terrible suffering in her dark gray eyes.

“Jim and I have a lot of things to catch up on before we cross that bridge, Father. We need time to get to know each other.”

“Well,” Hiram said as he strode toward the door, “if you marry this coward, Alex, you're as good as disowned. I won't have my daughter marrying a man with a bad conduct discharge! Politically, it would be disastrous. I hope you make the right decision.”

The door slammed shut. Alex jumped outwardly and shut her eyes. She felt Jim's arms go around her. Her knees grew weak, and she sank against him.

“I'm sorry, so sorry,” Jim whispered.

“No,” Alex choked, “I owe you an apology, Jim.”

He kissed her damp cheek. “Maybe he's right, Alex. I told you last night that my past will always stay with me. This is the kind of thing you could run into if you stay around me.” He caressed her sleek sable hair, sharing her anguish. “I don't want to make you hurt any more than you already have, gal.”

Grimly, Alex looked up at him. All she had to do was see the hurt and torture in Jim's eyes to know the answer. “Jim, we've survived the war.”

“What about the people who would know about me? Judge my past?”

“They aren't people I want to know,” Alex whispered. She caressed his hardened features, knowing how much her father's hurled insults had hurt Jim. “If people can't see your goodness, your honesty, then that's their problem, not ours.”

He held her tightly for a long time, unable to speak, only to feel intensely. “You're so small, yet you've got a backbone of steel,” he said against her ear.

“No more so than you,” Alex said.

“Nothing's been easy for us, has it?”

“No.”

He gazed down into her sad eyes. “I didn't mean to bring up marriage. I—well, someday, I planned to ask you to marry me if things worked out between us, Alex.”

She nodded. “I'm glad to know.”

He rallied beneath her warm look. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she teased huskily, and then threw her arms around his neck. Alex felt his strength, his love. “Your past,” she said, “is past. Jim, you're starting out a whole new life. You've got goals, good ones, and a dream.”

Holding Alex tightly, he nodded. “I've dreamed so big, I'm afraid it's never going to come true.”

With a shake of her head, her eyes pressed shut as she clung to him, she quavered, “Never let that dream go. We'll make it work. We'll hold on to it together.”

Smiling gently, Jim squeezed her tightly, pressing a kiss to her shining hair. “Together,” he promised.

A
lex was just getting off work when she saw Jim sauntering toward her from the bank of elevators. As always, her heart started hammering in anticipation. She quickened her pace. Since they'd returned from their trip to Missouri, taken the week he'd come back from Vietnam, the changes in him had been remarkable. Jim had two part-time jobs and was working hard to save enough money to start college in January. He'd already applied for several scholarships and grants and talked to a counselor about his chosen field of psychology.

Jim was dressed casually, as always, in jeans, a long-sleeved plaid shirt and a beat-up leather jacket. His dark hair had grown slightly—although it was still military short, in Alex's opinion. His boyish smile of welcome as she approached sent a sheet of warmth and longing through her. Since her father's visit, they'd grown closer, if that was possible. Alex was amazed at the way adversity had sent them down a path not only of self-discovery, but of discovery of each other. It had been one of the happiest times of her life, and one of the saddest. Her father refused to talk to her about Jim at all, and her mother was caught in the middle. Alex had received letters from her two brothers, but they had been letters more of curiosity than condemnation. Alex had spent a great deal of time writing back to them about Jim. To her disappointment, neither had responded. But perhaps it was because they were deployed far out at sea on their naval carriers.

Jim stopped and placed his hands on his hips. “If you aren't a sight for sore eyes, gal.” With a low whistle, he caught Alex's hand and squeezed it warmly.

Alex laughed and smiled. “Hi, stranger. What a nice surprise.” Jim's appearance felt like an unexpected gift.

Walking her to the elevators, Jim shrugged. “I guess I had that coming, didn't I?” They saw each other once a week. Usually, on that free evening, Alex cooked for him, because he loved home-cooked meals. They would allow themselves the luxury of curling up together to watch television over a bowl of popcorn, snuggled in each other's arms. Jim would stay the night and leave the next morning for his first job.

“How are the jobs coming along?” Alex asked as she followed him into the empty elevator.

“Boring, but I just keep thinking of the books and tuition they'll pay for. It's a decent trade-off,” Jim said. The instant the doors whooshed shut, Jim took Alex into his arms. He saw the greeting in her gray eyes, and the smile that blossomed across her lips as he leaned down to kiss her. There was such warmth and intensity to her as she moved into his waiting arms.

“Mmm,” Alex whispered as she drew back a few inches to look at him. “You are something else, Jim McKenzie.”

He grinned. “Glad you think so, Miss Vance. I talked to your supervisor earlier today, and she's agreed to give you the next four days off. How about that?”

Alex smoothed out her uniform, her entire body still tingling from his heated welcome kiss. “Oh?”

His eyes twinkling, Jim gave her a pleased look. “Yup. I also talked my two managers into giving me the same time off.”

It was December 22, and Christmas was fast approaching. Alex was stymied. “What's going on, Jim?”

Jim pulled two airline tickets from his jacket pocket. “Here. Merry Christmas, gal.”

Perplexed, Alex opened one of the tickets as they walked out of the elevator toward the parking lot at the rear of the hospital. “Tickets, Jim?”

“Looks like it. Go on, read them. What do they say?”

Alex stopped at the rear door and read the ticket closely. “Round trip tickets from Portland to Missouri.”

Jim grinned. “So would you like to go home over Christmas with me, Miss Alexandra Vance?”

Thrilled, she laughed. “I'd love to!”

“Good.” Jim opened the door for her and they walked out arm in arm. The evening was cool, the wind blustery and the skies cloudy.

“I see that glimmer in your eyes, Jim McKenzie. That means trouble.”

Jim had taken a bus to the hospital from his restaurant job so he could drive Alex home in her station wagon. Once in the car, he put his arms around her. “I thought it was time,” he told her seriously.

Alex sat very still. “Time? For what?”

“Us.” Gently he threaded his fingers through her hair, savoring the natural beauty that radiated from her.

Alex understood what Jim meant. Their time together had been severely limited, the moments they were able to share like bright spots of sunlight. “I'd love to go home with you over the holiday,” she whispered.

He smiled happily. As they shut the doors and began the drive home, he said, “I've got one more surprise.”

Alex glanced over at him. “I don't know if I can take all this good news all at once, Jim.” Gripping his hand, she asked, “What is it?”

“I don't know if I told you that, when I was up on that hill with Captain Johnson, Gunny Whitman, the second in command, was badly wounded. When my court-martial went down, the gunny wasn't around to testify on my behalf.” Jim grimaced. “If he had been, Lieutenant Breckenridge felt the other charge against me would have been dropped. Captain Johnson's story about my behavior was mostly lies, but I didn't have Whitman to prove it.”

Jim held her gaze. “My skipper called me today. He's over here on leave, getting married to a lady he's known for five years. He called to tell me that Gunny Whitman is well enough to give his story to the appeals board.” His hand tightened on Alex's fingers. “If the board believes the gunny, then it's possible that my sentence will be overturned. I could get back my rating as corporal, and all my back pay.”