In spite of the dazzling enchantment Buck was wary. There was something about the whole thing -

Abruptly he looked down again, and his suspicions were confirmed. He was Prince Charming, all right: he had on his best uniform with all his ribbon decorations and awards, including Georgia State Lawman of the Year, his Sam Browne belt, and even his motorcycle police boots, shined like mirrors. And somehow while dancing he was managing to hold his wide-brimmed hat in his uninjured hand.

The only trouble with Cinderella and Prince Charming was that Buck knew all too well who Cinderella really was. Awake or asleep she was beginning to haunt him, the most tantalizing, puzzling, desirable female he had ever known. But he knew in his heart that didn’t make it right. She was still Devil Anse’s granddaughter.

Besides, at any moment the clock would strike midnight and the whole thing would turn upside down.

Cinderella put her hand on his arm and said something Buck couldn’t quite make out. Sure enough, the clock was striking. He noticed now his bad arm was in a sling.

“Be careful,” Buck started to say.

Instead, she twined herself around him. The music grew faster. They spun with it. Buck couldn’t break away. She pressed against him so tightly his shoulder was in agony.

“Ow!” Buck yelled, becoming fully awake.

He still couldn’t move. The same body held him down in the bed, and hands – a mouth – were on his face. His bad arm was caught in between, shooting arrows of pain up into his collarbone. With an oath Buck flailed both arms, disregarding the agony, and flung himself out of bed, dragging the leechlike body with him.

“Wait!” Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs cried. “I’m just tryin’ to make it easier! For both of us!”

Buck staggered to the bedside lamp, hauling her with him. He turned it on.

“Easier?” He tried to pry her arms from around his neck, aware as he did so that her warm, slightly struggling body was pressed intimately against his pajama front. “What do you mean,” he bellowed, “easier for both of us?”

He had no idea what she was talking about. The only thing that was plain was that the Scraggs girl was trying to assault him in his own bedroom. Had tried, actually, to crawl in bed with him.

“Yes.” Those luminous dark eyes were right in his. Her grip was surprisingly strong; he still hadn’t been able to get her hands unclasped from around his neck. “I’m gonna give you what you want,” she whispered huskily.

Without warning Scarlett Scraggs stood on tiptoe, strained upward, and glued her mouth against Buck’s.

His first impulse was to wrench her away from him using whatever force necessary. But then, as those indescribably soft and tempting lips pressed against his, Buck found his vision fogging. The room seemed to slowly revolve. Sensation became so heated that the knifelike pain in his arm and shoulder faded completely away.

Reluctantly, his own arms went around her.

“Scarlett,” he murmured, knowing he was a damned fool but not able to summon enough willpower to do much about it, “open your mouth.”

She did. Wide open.

“Not like that, sweetheart.” He put his thumb under the tip of her chin to gently close it. “Let’s try this again.”

Even as he spoke a small voice in the back of his mind warned him that Scarlett’s actual words were that she was going to give him what he wanted. Buck had no idea what he wanted at that moment, except the impossible.

He was lost. So drowned in the sexy, tender warmth of Devil Anse’s granddaughter that his mouth gently explored her lips and felt them open to him. It was a long time before Buck drew back. After that memorable kiss, Scarlett’s look was as dreamily unfocused as his.

He suddenly had a terrible suspicion. “Scarlett,” Buck said hoarsely, “have you ever been kissed before?”

He could see the answer in her face.

Scarlett Scraggs stood before him in a nightshirt with a faded Atlanta Braves logo on it, evidently something from the church’s used-clothing boxes, her beautiful young breasts thrusting up under the cloth temptingly. Around her ravishing face her dark curls were tumbled and mussed, her mouth slightly swollen with kissing. She looked ravishing. It was more than Buck could stand.

Somewhat roughly, he took her by the hand and pulled her to the door.

“Whatever this is all about,” Buck found himself saying, “it’ll have to wait until morning. We’ll thrash it out then.”

She pulled back from him. “I don’t want to wait until morning. We gotta -”

“It will wait,” Buck barked, “oh, yes it will!” He needed to get her out of there.

But she grabbed the doorjamb with both hands. “Don’t put me out yet! I need to talk to you!”

He pried her fingers loose. “You’ve got to go, Scarlett.” God knows there was regret in his heart.

“I’m sorry, but my – uh, bedroom is no place for you right now.”

She tried to fling herself at him again. “Well then, why can’t you kiss me one more time?” Those gorgeous dark eyes flashed up at him. “You can do that much, can’t you?”

“Not on your life!”

He pushed Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs out into the hall, and shut the door. He was, he realized, shaking.

Buck started for bed, then thought better of it, and returned to the door. And locked it.

Ten

The next morning the weather over the Blue Ridge mountains had cleared, but it was still cold, and the wind blew. Someone on the lower branches of the Living Christmas Tree lost their music to a sudden gust and sheets fluttered away across the courthouse lawn like a flock of winter birds. A burst of laughter broke up the chorus of “The Wassailing Song” and the singers straggled to a stop.

“All right, all right,” Mr. Ravenwood, the Nancyville high school bandmaster shouted. “Let’s hold it down.”

Some of the children who were too small to be a part of the tree were sent to chase the music. Scarlett wrapped her free arm around the wooden bar that held up her part of the scaffolding and shivered so hard that it made the boards shake.

Beside her, Farrie said, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m just cold, that’s all.”

Her little sister’s expression said that Scarlett should have worn the good corduroy coat she’d gotten from Judy Heamstead’s church clothing boxes instead of just a light denim jacket. Everyone on the tree or down below among the parked cars was huddled in parkas or down-filled ski coats.

Farrie herself looked like a different child in a blue and white windbreaker, a knitted cap with a big white pompom, and matching blue mittens. Her eyes blazed with excitement, and her cheeks, red with the cold, looked as though someone had painted them. But then Farrie had been singing, Scarlett told herself. Anytime Farrie could sing she was happy.

“What’s going on? Who’s doing that up there?” Mr. Ravenwood had come close to the tree. “Stop it! You’re making the whole thing shake.”

Scarlett ducked her head. The last thing she wanted was to attract attention. Earlier, when they had arrived with Judy Heamstead and her mother, the band teacher had wanted to know if he hadn’t seen Scarlett somewhere before.

She’d wanted to take Farrie and go back to the sheriff’s house right then. If word got around that they were runaway Scraggses, Scarlett knew, it would be all over. But instead Judy had grabbed Scarlett and Farrie and pushed them toward the tree. “All you have to do is sing,” the minister’s daughter told them. “Nobody’s going to know who you are, and if they do, they won’t think anything about it. My dad is in charge, anyway.”

Mr. Ravenwood was seeing that the music was returned to their proper owners. “Page three, everybody. ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing.’ From the top.”

Scarlett peered at her sheets. Judy Heamstead had just explained to her what “wassailing” meant. Scarlett had never seen the word before in her life.

All the songs for the Living Christmas Tree had been carefully chosen, as they were not supposed to sing about anything that dealt with what Mr. Junior Whitford and the rest of the committee considered to be the Real Meaning of Christmas. That was too bad, as it eliminated just about all the carols any of them had ever heard.

After running through what was left, Christmas was sort of watered down. Although the song they’d just sung, “Here We Come A-Wassailing,” was a lot better than “Frosty the Snowman” or “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” The same thing went for “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” She saw Farrie’s face scrunch up when Mr. Ravenwood asked them to turn to it. Kissing Santa Claus was nothing to sing about for someone whose mother had been fooling around – maybe not with Santa Claus, but a Nashville guitar player – one Christmastime.

“Here we come a-wassailing

Among the leaves so green -

Here we come a-wandering

So – faaiir – to be seen -”

Farrie’s clear voice rose over all the singers, even the Methodist and Baptist church choirs singing down in front. Farrie had a big voice for such a little girl; most people didn’t believe it until they heard her sing. Scarlett saw her sister holding the music sheets up in front of her, but she wasn’t following them, she was looking over the courthouse lawn as though expecting someone.

“Love and joy come to you

And to you, your wassail too

And God bless you and

Send you a Happy New Year -”

Scarlett couldn’t help thinking there wasn’t much for Farrie to hope for if she was looking for Sheriff Buck Grissom. They’d hardly seen him the past two days. He’d brought Scarlett some groceries, but the only one who’d really seen him for more than a brief moment at morning and night was Demon. The dog went to work with him during the day and hung around when he was doing paperwork at night or watching television in the den. Not, they all knew, that Buck was crazy about having Demon around: he’d tried to shut Demon up in the bathroom that morning so he could slip off to work. But they’d all seen what Demon had done to the bathroom door before he let her out.