Disclaimer: Wow, it's been so long...do I own the Duke's of Hazzard? (ruffles through stacks of papers on desk) Ah, alas, no. Don't have that kind of cash. Well, at any rate, here's another BR story, even if it's just to keep me amused. :)

Important A/N: This story begins during the events of Miz Tizdale On The Lam, and thus some of the scenes are directly taken from it.

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ONE -- COMPLICATED COUNTRY LIFE

Balladeer: Strangers in Hazzard were not a common occurrence, but when a new face did appear, the locals did their best to be friendly. And it seemed that the unofficial welcome wagon was Bo and Luke Duke. Of course, it didn't hurt that Daisy had an eye for attractive new men.

He sat in the corner of the Boar's Nest, sipping his beer. He was dressed like a local, jeans and a brown shirt, nothing extraordinary. Brown hair, indiscriminate eyes, but he had a particular way of speaking that got Daisy's attention. Southern Texan accent, definitely, but it was something about his voice, his manners, a blending of country and city, that made her look twice.

"So what brings you to Hazzard?" Daisy asked.

The man looked up at her and gave her a smile that was all charm. "Actually, I'm getting into the horse trade."

"You breed horses?"

"More like train them," he explained. "I just bought some property a few miles from here, off of Route 81?"

Daisy's eyes lit up. "The old Wilson farm! Yeah, I used to know them. Widow Wilson went to go live with some family after her stroke…well, I'm glad someone other than Boss Hogg is taking care of the place."

A look flickered across the stranger's face. "Yeah, Hogg," he said, attempting to be polite. "Interesting guy."

"Interesting?" She nodded. "Yeah, he's been called everything else."

The stranger chuckled and then extended his hand. "Jed Davidson," he said.

"Daisy Duke," she replied.

"Duke? That name sounds familiar…" He rubbed his chin with his fingers. "I think Boss Hogg was going on about something to do with Dukes when I came in to sign the mortgage."

"Probably," Daisy said with a roll of her eyes. "He does whatever he can to keep us on our toes."

"Sounds like he makes life difficult."

She shrugged. "Interesting," she said with a wink. Just then her cousins appeared behind her.

"Daisy!" Bo greeted, eyeing the beers still on her tray. "Those for us?"

"Not a chance, sugar," she said, smiling but holding them out of reach. "Why don't you sit down with the newest member of Hazzard, Mr. Jed Davidson, and I'll get back to work?"

"Only if you eventually promise to bring us some beer," Luke smirked, pulling out a chair. Instantly he had his hand out and was shaking with Jed. "Luke Duke," he said, and gestured to Bo. "My cousin, Bo."

"Nice to meet you," Jed said. "Let me get your beers for you. Daisy?"

"Right on it," she said with a shake of her head.

"So, Jed," Luke said, "what brings you to Hazzard?"

Balladeer: And so Luke and Bo went about the business to getting into other people's business. But it was all right at the moment, as Jed seemed like a nice enough guy. They were shuckin' and jawin' by the time the real trouble walked through the door.

"Well, I'd just be careful of Boss Hogg, if I were you," Luke said, finishing his beer. "Sounds like you got a good bargain out of him, but Boss usually has all the angles covered."

Jed nodded, still grinning. "Trust me, I read the fine print."

"He made you sign something?" Bo asked absently, distracted by movement at the door.

"Yeah, Bo, it's called—"

But Jed wasn't listening anymore. Suddenly his face went a bit slack and his eyes widened.

"Hell, I thought I only ever saw that look on Bo's face," Luke murmured, glancing at his cousin, and realized that Bo, too, was looking over his shoulder, but with a rather different expression. More like he was pained.

It was not a grand entrance by any means, but Henri-Mae Locke was always a sight. She stood out like a supermodel in a grocery store, the combination of her black leather pants with the blue sheriff shirt, including the little black tie that had been loosened just enough to accentuate her chest instead of hide it. She usually kept her hair tied back in a neat braid, heavily wetted down because her hair was nearly impossible to tame. Usually, though, by mid-day, she had to take the braid out because it had become so frayed. It seemed that her mane was acting up early.

The shaking of her long honey-brown locks across her shoulders was more than enough to get any man's attention, and she did it so unselfconsciously that it was unnerving. But she didn't spare anyone a glance as she headed for the door to Hogg's office.

Bo turned back, his eyes landing on Jed and realizing that the man was still staring in Henri-Mae's direction, even though she was gone. A pang ran through him – he knew that look too well.

"Who was that?" Jed asked.

Balladeer: Boy's pretty cool, consider he's just been hit full in the face with Cupid's arrow.

"Deputy Locke," Luke replied, going back to his beer. The last thing he wanted was to get in the middle of this upcoming mess.

"You sure got some pretty law enforcement around here," Jed murmured.

"Hrmph," Bo hrmphed. Things with Henri-Mae had been up, down, and up again so quickly he couldn't keep track. Two months ago, they'd had a rather resolving conversation just outside the Boar's Nest, and cemented their tenuous truce. The time following had been quiet and their various encounters since peaceful -- and he could move on and smile at pretty girls without feeling a nice big rock of guilt on his chest. But with the way Jed was looking at her...

The aforementioned turned to him, eyes clearing. "So that's it? What's the story? How'd a girl like that become part of the Sheriff's department?"

"Very long story," Bo said, wishing to squish the subject. The when he saw the amusement on Luke's face, annoyance flashed through him. "What?"

"Her name is Henri-Mae," Luke said with a sigh, giving in to the inevitable. "She came back into town about a year ago…she's kind of an ex-flame of Bo's."

Jed's head swiveled back around to Bo, expression wide. "Oh, I'm sorry, Bo, I didn't mean—"

"You didn't," Bo said, giving Luke a dirty look. "Henri-Mae and I are ancient history."

"You sure about that?"

"Very," Bo muttered. And he'd be so damn sure of that, too. He no longer looked at her as if he'd lost something he could never get back. Why all of a sudden was it coming back?

"Well," Jed said, leaning forward as the door opened and Henri-Mae suddenly reappeared, "mind if I take a chance?"

"Not at all," Bo said, but his gut made a funny little lurch as he said it.

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When Henri-Mae emerged from that office, she looked angry. It was a simmering, deep, hot anger, a volcano that could likely explode if the wrong thing happened. She stomped over to a table currently occupied by Cletus, slapped her hat down and plopped into the old wooden chair, propping up one leg on a neighboring chair that brought her shining black boots into prominence. She slumped down, arms folded.

"Bad day?" Cletus asked, partly ignorant as he busied himself taking peanuts out of the shell and making a careful pile of them beside him.

"Boss…" she muttered.

"Careful what you say," Cletus said, but his smile was planted firmly in place. "I'm one eighth Hogg, y'know."

"Sounds to me like it's time for an amputation," Henri-Mae muttered, gesturing at Daisy.

"An am-phew…huh?"

Henri-Mae looked away. She was tired, she was cranky, and worse than that, she was broke. "Does he ever give raises?" she asked, returning to her earlier rant.

"I haven't gotten one since I got here, and that was three years ago," Cletus said, still picking away at peanut shells. Henri-Mae groaned and rolled her head back over the top of her chair.

Daisy appeared, setting down the beer. Henri-Mae looked up, not expecting the friendliest service from the alpha-female Duke-- she'd never really forgiven Henri-Mae for her part in the hostage situation in the county jail two months back that endangered the lives of her two beloved cousins -- but knew Daisy wouldn't dare start anything. She ventured, still careful, "Can you start a tab for me, Daisy?"

"No need, sugar," Daisy said, straightening. "This one's already been picked up." She glanced over her shoulder.

Henri-Mae frowned and looked in the same direction. Bo and Luke sat together at a table with a face she didn't recognize. "Who? Bo's not buying me a beer, is he?"

"No, the stranger," Daisy answered shortly. "It's on him."

As if on cue, the stranger raised up his glass and toasted her. Bo and Luke just continued to look on, both with friendly, if distant, nods.

Grasping the handle of the beer mug, Henri-Mae tentatively toasted him back in thanks, and then sipped at the cool foamy top.

A few moments passed. Henri-Mae was temporarily distracted by Cletus' sudden rambling about all the times he had attempted to get a raise from Boss and had failed miserably, when another shadow fell across them. She looked up.

The stranger was standing over them, smiling cordially, hat in hand. "Hello," he said. "I'm Jed Davidson, I'm new in town. I thought it might be a good idea to make myself familiar with the local law enforcement."

Taken aback for a moment, Henri-Mae had to chuckle, looking in amusement across the table at Cletus, still piling his peanuts. What an impression they had to make. An idiot and…well, she knew her own motivations for keeping this job.

"That's Cletus," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, but the stranger, Jed's eyes didn't move from her. She'd been pinned by that look a handful of times in her life, but this guy…he seemed different. Genuine, actually. He had an air of southern gentleman about him that few southern gentlemen actually pulled off. And his accent was thick, if not local. Texan, she was pretty sure. "I'm Henri-Mae."

"Deputy Locke, they told me," Jed said, his smile widening, showing some teeth, as he took her hand. "Very nice to meet you."

"You too," she said. "Thanks for the beer."

"My pleasure. I hope to run into you sometime when it's not police business," he said, donning his hat. It was a cowboy hat, and it fit him, like in some old west movie. He nodded his head at her respectfully one last time before heading out the door.

She stared after him a moment. "Cletus," she said eventually, "you know that guy?"

"Bought the Wilson farm," Cletus said, starting to munch his peanuts. "Something about horses. Boss was scheming to overcharge him on his bales of hay until he gets himself started up."

Henri-Mae grunted. Something about that man was sticking with her…something about his eyes. She couldn't remember what color they were…they seemed blue in one second and brown in the next.

"Maybe…" she murmured, but shrugged it off and went back to her beer. All she really wanted was to finish it, go home, and take a long nap.

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A few days later, Henri-Mae had the opportunity to run into him again, this time outside the General Store.

While her room and board were taken care of by her deal with Boss, she still had to feed herself, and even though she lacked the use of a kitchen, she was very good at making meals that didn't need cooking. Usually her trips to the General Store were weekly and could be contained by a single bag, as her salary usually afforded hot lunches at the Boar's Nest. She was on her way out of the store, bag hitched on her hip, when she noticed that someone was admiring her motorcycle, currently sitting idle in its parking space.

The man turned around. This time in a blue T-shirt and black jeans, brown hair tossed ruggedly over his eyes, and sans the cowboy hat, Jed Davidson smiled at her. "Well, hello," he said, walking towards her. "You wouldn't happen to know whose bike that is, would you?"

For a second, she forgot to breathe. Just at that moment, he was particularly striking. His eyes were definitely hazel-blue, and sparkling from their perfect setting in his face. His features were on the angular side, with his nose being the most prominent, a bit large and mildly crooked, as if it had been broken at some point in time. Softened as his face was with the smile, it gave him a boyish, playful, downright mischievous look. The kind she easily went for. "Mine," she said with a grin, arms looped lazily around her bag. "You like it?"

He let out a low whistle. "Had to cost a pretty penny."

"Yeah, well…when something is important…" her voice trailed off. Why had her mouth gone dry?

"Yeah," he agreed, coming closer. He stopped a polite five or six feet from her, hands stuffed into his pockets. The afternoon breezes waffled through his feathery locks. "You had to have that custom made."

She gave a slightly uncomfortable shrug. "It was a gift, actually. Long story."

That mischief in his face seemed to glimmer at her. "Seems to be the standard around here, long stories. Never thought life in the country could be so complicated."

"Only when you don't mind your own business." Then realizing how bitchy that sounded, she changed the subject. "You're in the horse trade, right?"

He nodded, seemingly unphased. "Training and conditioning, actually. And you're off duty?" It had the sound of a question, but it was a statement.

"Girl's gotta have some time to herself," she quipped, reaching to the bag and idly popping a Cheese-It into her mouth. "What brings you into town?"

"Oh, I was taking care of some business at the bank," he replied. "I heard something about there being a Grange dance in this square this Saturday. You know anything about it?"

She nodded, sighing. "People in this town don't have much else to do," she said, starting her walk down the sidewalk. He fell into step beside her, still keeping that polite distance.

"They have dances here a lot?"

"Pretty regularly. At least once a month," she informed him. Her walk picked up just a touch, enough for him to keep up.

Suddenly he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "What about your bike?" he asked.

"I park it here," she said. She pointed ahead toward the boarding house. "I live there."

"You park it there all the time?" Jed asked, a bit astounded. "And nobody bothers it?"

"Not if they want to live," she added. No sense in giving this man the wrong impression. She wasn't the soft little country girl to be courted and romanced. Better for him to know what he was shopping for right up front.

"Ah," he said, understanding, but it didn't daunt his smile in the least. If anything, it made it brighten. "So, about that dance…are you going to be there?"

"Everyone else will," she said, "and since it's in front of where I live, it's kind of impossible for me not to come join in. Especially when the noise keeps me awake."

"Huh. I didn't peg you for an early girl."

She gave him a half-smirk. "I'm full of surprises."

He nodded, appreciatively. "Well, then maybe you'll surprise me by saving a dance for me on Saturday."

She climbed up the steps to the boarding house and turned to look at him. But just then, as she turned around, someone came out of the post office. A slim figure, dressed like anyone else in town, button-down cotton shirt, blue jeans. The exception was, he didn't have any hair on his head, and a very thick, black beard that wrapped around his chin.

She had opened her mouth to reply to Jed, but instead, nothing came out. "Henri-Mae?" he said, tentatively.

The figure looked around. He was shoving a big mail bag through the passenger window of his blue car. Instinctively, Henri-Mae stepped back down, right into Jed's shadow. Seeing where she was gazing so intensely, Jed looked over his shoulder in that general direction.

But it was too late. The man was gone. Jed looked back at her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She shook herself. Blinking, she looked at Jed. "Yeah. And, uh... I'll see you at the dance." And she headed up into the boarding house a second time, watching the blue car disappear down the street.