Hey All- This is my second submission. Another F&C in their own AU that I wrote a year or so back. Callie returning to a life in the Tennessee mountains after being released from prison. She soon runs into her high school flame, Frank. Hope you like. I am working on a F&C story in their more known universe, but am having a bit of writing block. In the meantime I may submit another of my already finished works. I have always enjoyed writing them in an AU setting because it opens the doors to be more creative. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but hope you enjoy! I have put this into four longer chapters.

The burly trucker's hand slid across her backside for the third time in the last half hour. He'd been drinking whiskey with beer chasers, which probably explained why he thought groping his waitress was a good idea.

But Callie Shaw was stone cold sober and the pitcher of draft beer in her left hand was full. On the fourth fumbling grab, she dumped the beer over the trucker's head.

Amid a roar of laughter, the trucker cursed, pushed to his feet and crowded Callie against the bar. The comical look of bewilderment in his eyes when he realized he was still three inches shorter than her was worth every penny of money she was going to lose when her boss got wind of her latest escapade.

"Damn it, Callie, what did I tell you about drenching my customers?" Joe Breslin approached, a couple of bar towels in one hand. Right on time.

"He kept putting his hand on my ass, Joe." She took one of the towels and patted down her apron where beer had splashed on her.

"And we talked about how to handle that, didn't we?" Joe's expression was taut with impatience. "Men come to this bar to drink and flirt and play pool, not get beer showers."

"I'll pay for the beer. You know I'm good for it."

The trucker called Callie a name that made even Joe, a rough and jaded Army vet, recoil. "Out!" he barked to the trucker, one heavy-muscled arm outstretched toward the door. "And if you're drivin', you damned well better sleep off all that whiskey in your cab before you get behind the wheel."

"I'm driving," said the young man who'd been sitting across the table from the trucker. "What does he owe?"

"Get him out of here, don't come back, and we'll call it even." Joe nodded toward the door.

As the young man guided the other trucker toward the exit, Joe turned back to Callie. "I can't keep doing this, Callie."

"I'll hold my temper next time," she promised.

Joe shook his head. "No, you won't. Look, if you promise not to take another bar job, I'll give you a good reference."

Callie's stomach tightened. "You're firing me?" He couldn't fire her. He just couldn't. To get Adelaide back, she needed a job. And in these parts, jobs were hard to come by even if your record was squeaky clean.

And Callie's was anything but.

"I warned you three times already, honey." Sighing, Joe caught her elbow gently in his beefy hand and led her toward the corner of the bar. "Even fellows who wouldn't harm a fly while stinkin' drunk are starting to shy away because of the dragon lady."

Callie drew back. "Dragon lady?"

Joe looked at her, one bushy eyebrow cocked.

She lowered her voice. "You know why I need this job."

"I do. It's why I've kept you this long. But I'm losing customers."

The door of the saloon opened, letting in a blast of hot August air barely tempered by nightfall. Callie waved her arm at the opening door. "And gaining new ones. You need me, Joe."

"Maybe I do, sugar," he said sadly."But I can't afford you anymore."

"Damn it, Joe!" In frustration, she jerked her arm away, turning quickly toward the door. Too quickly. Her high heeled boots slipped across the beer puddling on the saloon's cement floor, and she went sprawling headlong into one of the newcomers who'd just entered Smoky Joe's.

Strong arms caught her up against a hard, hot body. A low, raspy voice rumbled from his chest, taking Callie back a decade. "Hey there, Callie."

Lifting her gaze, she found herself drowning in a familiar pair of brown eyes. Her heart skipped a beat, then gave a helpless flop.

Frank Hardy was back in Ridge County.

((()))

Callie Shaw had been the best looking girl at Ridge County High School, all long legs, tawny skin, golden blonde hair and chameleon eyes that seemed to change color according to her mood. At the moment, the wide eyes gazing up at Frank were slate blue, dark with surprise and a hint of anger. She pushed herself upright and dropped her hands from his arms. "Frank, you're back."

"So I am."

"Hey there, Callie." Seth Hammond nudged Frank aside and shot Callie a toothy grin. "Long time, no see."

"Seth Hammond." Callie gave the other man the "don't try to play me" look she'd perfected in high school. "Heard you're walking the straight and narrow these days. Married some rich girl and you're about to be a daddy?"

"Something like that." Seth's smile widened.

"Congratulations." Callie's gaze swept back to Frank, coolly composed, her eyes lightening to the soft blue of a summer sky. "You look good. Still a Marine?"

He wished he could regain his own equilibrium as easily as she had seemed to do. "I retired earlier this year."

"Home for a visit?"

"No, back to stay." He nodded toward Joe Breslin, who was crouched over the spilled beer, mopping up the worst with a towel. He glanced up at Frank and gave a nod of greeting. "Did we walk in on some trouble?" Callie had always been a trouble magnet. He knew better than most.

"Just an employment opportunity gone terribly wrong." Callie unwrapped the navy apron from her waist and shot a dark look at Joe. "I'd best make myself scarce before Joe decides to dock my severance pay."

Joe let out a long-suffering sigh. "Callie, you know it ain't like that."

Callie breezed past him, dropped the apron on the bar and went into the bar's back room.

"What happened?" Frank asked.

"Patron got handsy, Callie didn't take kindly to it and gave him a beer shower." Joe shook his head. "She just can't control her temper around stupid drunks, and they can't seem to keep their hands off her backside."

Anger settled in the middle of Frank's forehead like a throbbing ache. "You fired her for not letting drunks grope her?"

"I fired her for dumping beer on his head instead of coming to me and lettin' me handle it." Joe sighed. "Look, I ain't one to let drunks come in here and abuse my employees. But I can't make a living if I let my employees abuse drunks, either."

"He has a point," Seth drawled.

Frank cut his eyes toward his colleague. Seth held up his hands and backed away.

"She ain't the girl you remember, kid," Joe murmured, his sudden look of sympathy making Frank's guts squirm. "She's even harder now. She had to be. She'll land on her feet like she always does."

"She shouldn't have to." Guilt eclipsing anger, Frank pushed past Joe and headed into the back of the bar, ignoring the older man's protest. A narrow hallway led back to a handful of rooms, most of them storage areas. At the very back of the building was a small area that clearly served as the employees' locker room.

It was empty.

Footsteps sounded behind him, heavy and slow-moving. Frank turned to see Joe Breslin in the doorway behind him, his expression sympathetic. "She's stayin' at her mama's old place these days."

"Thanks." Frank pushed past the bar owner and headed back to the front of the saloon, where he found Seth Hammond leaning against the bar, shelling a roasted peanut. He thumped his colleague on the arm. "Come on."

Seth caught up at the exit. "Where are we going?"

Stepping out in the muggy night air, Frank angled his chin toward the mountains visible in the east. "To see a woman about a job."

((()))

The trailer was old, small and still smelled faintly of pipe tobacco, despite numerous cleanings. It was the closest thing Callie had to a family legacy, the slightly rusted Airstream that had belonged to her mother's father. Alcohol and drugs had nearly wiped out that side of the family for good; other than distant cousins scattered around the South and Midwest, Callie and Adelaide were the only ones left.

Slumping in the rickety chair in the galley kitchen, she debated if she was hungry enough to eat before bedtime. There was precious little in the fridge or the pantry, since Joe had docked her pay twice in the last three months for pitchers of beer and, in one case, dry cleaning bills for an irate customer.

"Your temper gets you in trouble every time, Callie," her mama used to say. But Mama had never realized that Callie's temper had been the only thing keeping her sane back in the old days.

As she crossed to the refrigerator, she heard the sound of an automobile approaching. It stopped outside the trailer, the engine noise cutting off and dying away. Detouring to the high-set window next to the front door, she peered through faded curtains and saw Seth Hammond and Frank Hardy emerge from the cab of a dark green pickup truck.

Oh, hell.

Boots thudded on the wood stoop leading up to the trailer, followed by three sharp raps on the metal. Steeling herself, she opened the door and peered at her visitors through the rickety screen. "What?"

Seth grinned, but Frank looked tense and serious. "May we come in?"

She planted herself more firmly in front of the doorway. "Can it wait until morning? I'm tired, I smell like beer and I just want to go to bed."

For a second, heat flickered in Frank's eyes, and Callie felt a spark of response low in her belly, spreading heat and tremors up her spine. "You need a job," he said in that growly baritone that used to give her shivers when he said her name. "I have one to offer."

She stared at him, appalled by the burst of excitement flooding her chest. She tamped it down ruthlessly. Work with Frank? See him again every day, knowing that what they'd once had together, what she'd hoped they'd have forever, could never be again?

It would be hell.

But it's a job, whispered a practical voice in the back of her head that sounded a lot like her mother's. And you need a job somethin' fierce.

"Are you in drug treatment, rehab or anything like that?"

"No," she answered, bristling. "You know I never touch the stuff."

"A lot's gone down since I was here last," he said bluntly. The words stung.

"You mean I spent five years in jail."

His eyes darkened. "I'm a private investigator. I need someone to help me with a sting. Right down your alley, and if you do well, it could become a more permanent job—fifteen dollars an hour, thirty-five hours a week guaranteed and more likely forty to forty-five. At fifty hours a week, you get time and a half for overtime. No vacation for six months, but after that, two weeks a year assuming you pass muster. Plus performance raises. And it might involve more field work now and then. You'd enjoy that." Frank bent closer to the screen door, the light from the kitchen making his hazel eyes look turbulent sea green. "You can start as early as tomorrow. What do you say?"

She looked from Frank to Seth, whose grin had faded. He was looking at Frank as if he'd lost his mind.

If she didn't take the offer now, she realized, it wasn't likely to repeat itself. And God knew she could use the money.

"I'll take it," she said.

And hoped like hell she wasn't making the worst mistake of her error-prone life.

((()))

I'd swear I hired you as an agent, not as a human resources coordinator." Alexander Quinn's voice was controlled, but warning signs flashed in his hazel eyes. "Yet here you are, hiring a new employee without so much as consulting me."

Frank had come in prepared for an argument. "We need to run this sting. And Ms. Walsh needs a job."

"Does she have any references?"

"Her last employer gave her high scores in dependability, adaptability and honesty."

Quinn's eyebrows ticked upward. "Her last employer was?"

"Joe Breslin."

"So, you've hired an ex-convict with an anger management problem, a family history of drug abuse and trafficking, and no job background in clerical work."

Frank should have known Quinn would already know all the details about Callie's past. The man missed nothing. First as a CIA agent, now as the head of The Gates, a private security and investigation firm, Quinn dealt in information. It was his job to be the one with the most information at the end of the day. "She's what we need. After talking to Penny Sheridan, Seth and I agree that the grifter targeting rich southern women will be looking for a new target soon. And based on his pattern of behavior, we think he'll be looking next for a mark in the Knoxville area. So we're going to give him one."

"You mean—"

"A woman named Callie Walters will be moving into a house in a very private, very exclusive place called Sanctuary Hill, east of Knoxville." Seeing the interest in his boss's eyes, Frank leaned forward to continue the pitch. "She's the only child of a recently deceased Texas oil magnate. Beautiful, filthy rich and bored with her life. She's looking for adventure and romance. The perfect mark."

Quinn stood and leaned toward him, the move clearly meant to exert authority. "And what in Ms. Walsh's résumé makes you believe she's capable of pulling off such an assignment?"

"She's quick on her feet and lies convincingly." Too convincingly sometimes, as he knew first hand.

"This is supposed to convince me to hire her?"

"She can play the role we're asking her to play." Frank stood to face Quinn. "When you hired me you said you trusted my judgment."

"Everyone makes mistakes." Quinn sat and leaned back in his chair. "This could cost you your job, you know."

Frank nodded. "I know."

"One week to lure your suspect into the trap."

"A week?" He hadn't even gotten all the pieces into place. Callie would need a new wardrobe, manicure, pedicure, hairstyling—earlier that morning she'd rattled off a list of things she'd have to do in order to play the role of a wealthy Texas socialite.

Quinn nodded toward the door. "The clock is ticking."

Frank left quickly, his mind already several steps ahead by the time he entered the agents' bullpen. Seth was on the phone, while Callie perched on the desk beside him, her knee-length skirt sliding up to reveal a hint of toned, tanned thigh. As if she heard the hitching sound of his skipping pulse, she slowly turned and pinned him with her blue-eyed gaze. A smile curved her lips and she rose to her feet, a golden goddess. And in that moment, he knew two things without doubt. One—despite her sketchy background, she would have no trouble convincing Sanctuary Hill society that she was a rich, beautiful heiress.

And two—despite more than a decade away from Ridge County, he had never gotten over Callie Shaw.