“We don’t need any of that, Harry,” Buck said. “In spite of what you think you heard on television, the sheriff’s department of Jackson County is not going to be down at the courthouse tomorrow night with a cadre of deputies to use force on any living manger scene. Because there isn’t going to be any manger scene.”

“Now, you don’t know that, Buck,” the mayor said quickly. “There were a lot of people looking at Channel Ten tonight, and they heard what you said.”

“That was just something dreamed up by those Atlanta news people,” Buck maintained. “Nobody had said anything about a manger scene or using deputies until the TV people showed up. Harry, that team would have been happy as hell if they’d gotten me to say that I was going to run Joseph and Mary and the kid that won the Best Baby Jesus contest off the courthouse lawn at gunpoint!”

“That’s just the problem,” the mayor said hoarsely. “Junior Whitford came over here a little while ago with most of his Committee for the Real Meaning of Christmas, and they’d been watching Channel Ten, too. I’ll say it to you, Buck, although I won’t say it to them – that damned committee’s got their heads turned by all the publicity. They’ve decided they’re going to have a manger scene after all!”

Buck surveyed the wall before him bleakly. “They can’t. There’s a court order.”

“Court order, fiddle-faddle!” the mayor burst out. “They think they’re going to storm the courthouse! They’ve already called Channel Ten, Junior tells me, to tell them what they’re going to do.”

And Channel Ten loved it, Buck thought.

“We had to put on our thinking caps,” the mayor went on. “There we were, except for Britta and Steve Morrisey, trying to come up with a new approach.”

Buck said cautiously, “You’re not thinking of those damned fireworks, are you?”

The council had learned that in a pinch they could use the leftover supplies of fireworks from the last municipal Fourth of July celebration, which was not as strange as it sounded: fireworks were a part of southern Christmases, even though the custom was dying out somewhat.

“Well, I think we ought to go with the fireworks,” the mayor was saying, “although I know you don’t like them, Buck. But the idea is to provide so much entertainment tomorrow night that – uh, people won’t look kindly on any interruptions from Junior and folks I won’t mention. We’ve just had an offer from Ronnie Dance, who runs an outfit that specializes in dropping Santa Clauses during the holiday season.”

“Dropping Santa Clauses?” Buck straightened up, surprised in spite of himself. “What the hell’s that?”

“The big operators bring their Santa Clauses in by helicopter, Buck,” the voice on the telephone explained a little apologetically. “You know, Santa just steps right out of the chopper in the parking lot and into the nearest J.C. Penney’s or what have you. Ronnie doesn’t have a helicopter, he runs a skydiving service in the summertime out of a Cessna 206. Santa Claus-dropping is just his off-season business. But he can drop a skydiver in a Santa uniform onto a circle that’s been already drawn on the asphalt at the shopping mall. Most of Ronnie’s Santas used to be paratroopers; they kind of look for that target.”

“Harry,” Buck said, keeping his voice even with an effort, “we don’t need a skydiving Santa at the Living Christmas Tree tomorrow night. There’s going to be enough going on.”

“Buck, I can’t refuse it!” the mayor rasped. “Ronnie’s offered it free, after Santa does his jump up at the K Mart in Toccoa. It’s a good thing the Living Christmas Tree’s at sundown. Ronnie says he can just squeeze Santa in as the last jump of the day, and it won’t cost us a dime.”

“Harry,” Buck said, his temper beginning to slip, “you and the city council just consider that I’m responsible for maintaining law and order in this county, and I don’t know about being able to do that if you’re going to encourage anybody to stage their own demonstrations tomorrow night -”

“Nobody encouraged Junior and that damned committee,” the mayor shouted, “that was his own idea!”

“- and pile a fireworks display and a Santa jump from a Cessna on top of it, while the people who worked hard on all this are trying to give the Living Christmas Tree their concert.”

The mayor made choking noises, trying to interrupt, but Buck went on. “Harry, it’s going to be pure hell if the council does even half this stuff, and then you want to throw the whole enchilada right in my lap! Now, you just tell those people you got in your house thinking up these bright ideas to go home and get some sleep.”

“Dammit, I’m not going to do that!” the mayor fired back. “Those people, as you call them, know there’s a need to show we got some civilizing influence up here, and that we’re not a bunch of jerks and hillbillies like they tried to show tonight on TV. As for you, Sheriff Grissom,” he said sarcastically, “you’re the one what shot off your mouth about armed deputies that are going to see to it we don’t have any unofficial manger scenes!”

“Now just a damned minute,” Buck said.

But the mayor had hung up.

Buck put the telephone back in its cradle with a groan of pent-up exasperation. The city council and the mayor had panicked, egged on by all those Nancyville citizens who had kept the telephone lines hot that night. The town had gotten upset enough about the original injunction over not having the living manger scene downtown. Now he knew his remark on TV, which seemed to say he would have deputies holding off any illegal Mary and Infant Jesus at the courthouse, had struck a nerve.

Damn, Buck thought, massaging the back of his neck furiously, he was beginning to hate Christmas!

He turned off the television in the den. The Scraggs dog got out from behind the couch and followed him as he went down the hall to the parlor to put out the lights on the Christmas tree. “I see you’re with me once more,” he told it.

The dog trotted along beside him, wagging its tail.

Buck stood gazing at the huge winking, glittering spruce for a long moment, suddenly realizing that since the Scraggs sisters were going to be with him for Christmas, somebody had to buy them presents.

What could you buy for the lock-picking little sister? he wondered. The contents of the Nancyville Hardware Store’s security department, so she could practice? A Rubik’s cube?

That didn’t sound like such a bad idea. Buck bent to finger a crayoned, cotton-bearded paper Santa Claus he remembered from the second grade.

And clothes. Farrie seemed to like clothes, the stranger the better. At least he could get both of them more than one pair of shoes.

And Scarlett?

Ah, Scarlett, Buck thought, still fingering the forgotten paper Santa Claus in his hand. What would he like to buy for her?

She wasn’t like Susan, he thought, bemused. She was a different person in her own right, soft and sparkling behind that tough Scraggs façade and, when you came down to it, an enchanting mystery. Both she and her sister were fascinated with the old Grissom house and what it represented, the kind of home they’d never had. The littlest one couldn’t keep her hands off the Christmas tree. And Scarlett was a natural-born chef.

Something for cooking, Buck thought, maybe one of those hand mixers. A set of chef’s knives. A frilly apron.

Black silk underwear, he thought suddenly. The idea of Scarlett in a frilly apron with nothing but black bikini panties and a black lace bra on under it made Buck’s fingers contract convulsively.

Looking down, he saw what he had done. He mashed the paper Santa Claus back into shape and nicked away the loosened parts of its beard.

You had to have a taste for trouble, he told himself as he turned out the Christmas tree lights, shoved the dog out of the way, and went out into the downstairs hall, to even think about Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs. Any professional lawman who gave a passing thought to the granddaughter of one of the state’s biggest criminals was out of his damned mind.

At the top of the stairs, he paused at their bedroom door and listened. Asleep, both of them.

Buck felt oddly disappointed. He’d almost wanted to find Scarlett awake, so he could talk to her. Maybe she had some ideas about this infernal mess with the council’s skydiving Santa Claus and fireworks. She seemed to have a pretty sharp mind.

He stood there, shifting from one foot to the other, not wanting to do anything as boring as go to bed, even though he was dog-tired.

At that moment the door opened.

The hall was dark and there was no light in his sister’s bedroom, but he knew at once it was Scarlett.

“What?” she said in a husky, sleepy voice.

Buck could just make out that cloud of dark hair, the pale oval of her face, the shadowy pools of her eyes. She was wearing the Atlanta Braves nightshirt that clung to her beautiful breasts and came only to the middle of her long legs. Buck tried not to look at it.

“I see you’re up after all,” he said, promptly cursing himself for the year’s stupidest observation.

“I heard you come up the stairs,” she murmured.

Buck knew he should say good night and turn to go to his room, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood drinking in the sight of Scarlett Scraggs, her lissom form in the nightshirt, her lovely face, her curving mouth that was sweetly, seductively, parted.

As if to ask, Buck thought suddenly, the question he’d never answered that night in his room. Aren’t you going tokissme again?

“Scarlett,” Buck said hoarsely. Those luminous eyes regarded him cautiously. “Are you – ah, comfortable in – in there?”

She considered that. “Well, it’s nice. Farrie especially likes the bed.”

Bed, Buck thought. It would have to be that word. He resolutely put thoughts of aprons and black lingerie out of his mind. Instead, he studied her hand resting against the doorjamb: the long, graceful fingers, the delicate wrist, amazed all over again that something so beautiful, so exquisitely fashioned, could be produced by that cesspool of criminal genes, the Scraggses. She hasn’t had a chance, Buck told himself.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t need a window open, or anything?”

“No.” That sad, slightly quizzical look was still there.

She’s wondering what I’m doing, standing here, Buck thought desperately. What I want from her.

He felt a slight sheen of sweat break out on the back of his neck, under his collar. They were so close now they were almost touching. With a little effort he could put his good arm around her, hold her warm, slender body in the Atlanta Braves nightshirt up against him, as he had before.

He couldn’t leave, yet he sensed something was different. If she was unhappy about something he wanted to comfort her. With a groan, Buck reached out with his left arm and scooped Scarlett Scraggs to him. He heard her gasp before he covered her mouth with his own.

Kissing Scarlett Scraggs was dangerous; it got better each time. She flowed into his arms, soft and tantalizing, sweetly giving – Buck drowned in that kiss. He could barely tear himself away.

When he looked down into Scarlett’s face, he saw her eyes were still closed. “Oh,” she was murmuring softly. “Oh!”

The astonishing part of this whole thing was not that kissing Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs was a sweet seventh wonder of the world, a dazzling trip through outer space and back again, but that they didn’t need to talk, say anything at all. The kiss said it all for them, a tender, fragile bubble of feeling that was wonderful.

Buck, still locked in the magic, didn’t want to let her go. It was Scarlett who pulled away. “I gotta go,” she said.

He supposed she was right. But he couldn’t help thinking she didn’t seem very enthusiastic about what had just happened. Not the way she’d been before.

Buck thought he’d detected an odd sadness. There was certainly no mistaking the faint, teary wobble in her voice.

“Scarlett, wait,” Buck said.

But the door closed softly. He stared at it, still not able to figure out what this was all about. She’d acted like he’d broken her heart instead of kissing her.

He was damned if it made any sense, he thought grumpily as he opened the door to his bedroom and the Scraggs dog rushed past him to leap on his bed. But that’s what you got being involved with the Scraggs tribe. What was it Susan had said? They were hardly rewarding.

But for a moment, Buck knew, he’d held a soft armful of heaven in his arms. It was a long time before he got to sleep.