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.
“Love and joy come to you
And to your wassail, too -”
Scarlett lost her place in the music and stopped. She didn’t have the heart to tell Farrie what had happened in Sheriff Buck’s bedroom two nights ago. She didn’t understand it herself.
Scarlett knew she hadn’t exactly laid the groundwork for the sheriff’s marriage proposal, but what she’d done should have worked. After all, what did Reese Potter want with her, if not that? According to Reese and Loy Potter, it was worth Reese’s brand-new pickup truck, which they’d offered Devil Anse.
Buck Grissom was different, she knew now. In his room he’d acted as though he were feeling the same strange, exciting things as Scarlett.
Inwardly, she sighed. That kiss had opened a whole new world. Then something had happened. Right in the middle of the best part, when he was breathing hard and looking into her eyes and there seemed to be a pocket of fire about to burst right between them, Buck had pushed her out the door and locked it!
Since then he hadn’t spoken two words to her.
“All right, cut! Cut!” the music teacher shouted down below. “We’re not getting anyplace with that one. Let’s try something else.”
Scarlett leaned up against the wooden bar and rubbed her cold nose. The Living Christmas Tree was scheduled to sing every night at dusk on the courthouse lawn during the last five days before Christmas. Topmost position on the tree was going to be the Spirit of Mistletoe, who had a solo that was still to be announced. On the rest of the tree Bells and Angels stood on alternate rows, the “candles” the Angels were going to hold in their hands actually flashlights so the ever-present wind from Makim’s Mountain wouldn’t bother them.
She had to stop thinking about Buck Grissom, Scarlett told herself. Nobody wanted the sheriff to show up and hang around for the rehearsal and take them back to his house any more than she did. But it wasn’t going to happen.