The sheets were fairly cold when he climbed into what was, he’d always been told, his maternal grandfather Blankenship’s Lincoln-style bed. It took a moment for Buck’s body heat to warm it up. That gave him plenty of time to lie in the dark and listen to the wind pound the sleet against the northeast side of the house with a hiss like the sea hitting the shore. Then the wind, moaning in a low, wintry voice.
God help those without shelter on a night like this, both man and beast. That was what his dad, Sheriff Buck Grissom, Sr., always said.
Around the holidays Jackson County had the homeless coming over the mountains on the interstates from cities like Nashville. Sometimes there was a problem with families sleeping in cars or in old pickup trucks. On a night as cold as this it could be dangerous to pull off the highway to some supermarket parking lot to sleep. Half the homeless heading south for Atlanta or Florida didn’t have warm clothes, much less blankets. Buck thought about getting up and calling the jail, checking to see if anybody’d been brought in.
In the next instant he rejected the idea. There was a directive out to the department about taking the homeless to shelter; he’d written it himself back before Thanksgiving. The night shift could handle it, Buck told himself. No need to jump out of a warm bed as his dad always had to check on every little thing downtown.
Buck turned over on his side and shut his eyes. He didn’t want to think about the homeless, he didn’t want to think of vagrants out in a night of wind and bitter cold. Nor the condition of the Scraggs sisters when he’d brought them home: Scarlett in rubber sandals and a thin cotton dress, the younger one not much better off in sneakers and an old discarded football jacket. Old Devil Anse made money from his rackets; there was no excuse for anyone bringing up their own kin like that.
Cursing his need to get some sleep, Buck flopped over on his opposite side. And suddenly jerked up in bed holding his bad shoulder.
“Confound it,” he yelled. His mistreated arm throbbed painfully. He considered getting out of bed and putting the sling back on. Only briefly.
Gritting his teeth, Buck slid back down in the bed again. With his left hand he carefully pulled the covers up to his chin and closed his eyes. He kept his eyes closed determinedly as the wind lifted something loose outside the house and banged it across the lawn. A shutter thumped loudly. Or it was the unknown thing again, making an extended trip across the frozen grass outside. Buck told himself he wasn’t going to get up.
Somehow, even with all his fretting, he managed to drift off to sleep. Unfortunately, he had one of the worst dreams of his life.
He was dancing, and Buck was no dancer, at a wedding reception where half the guests were troll-like children running around wearing hideous peach satin dresses with big, floppy hats.
Even asleep, Buck cursed.
Then he discovered he was holding in his arms one of the most enchanting women he’d ever seen. The motion of the dance wafted her long dark hair out into the air like silken smoke. Her eyes were the same mysterious hue. And her lips – ah, her lips! That warm, full mouth was made for kissing. Buck was aware he hung over her, hopelessly fascinated, and that she wore a distinctive perfume. Aroma of meatloaf.
Buck looked down and could see she was wearing a costume in a vaguely antique style. The upper part of her gown exposed a good bit of her truly dazzling, pushed-up breasts. There were diamonds at her throat, and at her ears. On her head he saw, amazed, a diamond tiara. She gave him an impish smile.
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.