A/N: Ta-da, chapter eleven!This one took me a good long time to write :)
The Wind Blows Free
Chapter Eleven: Can't Fight the Feelin', Part Three
"Got any three's, Luke?" Rachel asked as she held up her cards.
"Go fish."
"This is lame," Ali griped, which was what everybody else thought as well.
"Ooookay, then, what do you propose we do?" Luke asked, throwing down his set of cards on the table.
Bo grinned. "Well, since I know what cards you got, I propose that I beat ya at this game for once. Let's see, ya got a queen—"
BOOM!
"I for one think we should think about those counterfeiter guys," Ali brought up, ignoring Bo's comment. "Why not stalk the guys one night, then ambush 'em somehow, and then turn 'em into the Feds?"
"That usually never works," Luke told her. "Trust me, Bo and I should know. Besides, we're not riskin' gettin' you girls hurt. What we could do though is go back when there's nobody there, take some of the fake money, careful not to leave our fingerprints on it of course, and turn that into the Feds. Then tell 'em where we got it, have them bust the guys, and for once me and Bo don't get in trouble."
Bo pointed at his cousin. "I like the idea where we don't get in trouble."
"Then let's go!" Ali proclaimed.
Luke looked at her as if she'd just lost her mind. "What! Have you looked out the window recently? There's no way I'm goin' out there!"
"Neither will the bad guys! They're not gonna be expectin' us to show up in this weather," Ali continued on, getting excited.
"But what if they were down in the barn when the storm hit?" Rachel brought up. "They could be stuck down there for all we know."
"Point well taken," Luke complimented as Ali glared at her sister."Besides, we wouldn't be able to see well enough to drive. And even tomorrow, the roads will be so muddy we still couldn't drive out there."
"Duh, leave the car somewhere and walk," Ali said stubbornly.
"You have any idea how far it is to walk out there?" Luke asked her, the two of them beginning tobicker. "It would take almost half an hour to do that!"
"From where though?" Ali argued back. She lovedto argue---even if it looked like she was losing."It took us ten minutes to get there from where we were the other night."
"Fine, we'll just go back over there an' then sneak in the way we did the other night," Luke smiled. "But not today. Or tomorrow."
"Then when, come on, you're killin' me here."
"Day after tomorrow," Luke grinned.
"I'm gonna punch you, Luke Duke, if you don't get that wise-guy look off your face," Ali threatened playfully. She threw her cards at him in an equally playful way. "Since you ruined the game, you can reshuffle."
"Y'all are more fun to watch than two bears fightin' over the same beehive," Bo noted. "Forget the game, let's just sit here and watch y'all for a couple of hours."
Luke threw a pillow at him.
The Boar's Nest
"OWW!" Daisy flinched in pain while Enos was feeling on her ankle to see if it was just a sprain or if it was broken. It appeared that she was right in diagnosing her injury as a sprain.
"Sorry," he apologized. "Y'all got a first aid kit here?"
"Yeah, at the bar right under the counter," Daisy told him, rubbing her ankle to try and relieve the pain.
She heard him walk off towards the bar, stop for a few minutes, then heard him walk back and sit down in his seat.
"Got it," he told her, gently lifting her foot to where it would be sitting in his lap. "Hold still and let me wrap it up. You reckon that ice is still frozen in that freezer back there?"
"Should be," Daisy answered. "OW!"
"Sorry."
He wrapped her foot with such careful ease that it actually impressed her.
"You officers have to learn medical treatment or did you learn that in your spare time?"
"We have to go through a little trainin', like CPR and stuff like that. I taught myself how to wrap bandages though. I got shot in the leg once in a huntin' accident, so I kinda had to teach myself."
"Ow."
"Sorry."
"No, I mean, you getting shot in the leg. It must've hurt."
"Oh," he replied, embarrassed now. "Yeah, it sure smarted. That's the reason, from then on, I don't like using a gun. Notice that I don't pull mine out too often."
"You don't like usin' a gun, but you're a cop?"
Enos grinned. "I was already a cop when it happened, so I didn't have much choice in that matter. I like the rest of the job okay, I guess. 'Cept when Mr. Hogg tries to throw your cousins in jail and set y'all up for stuff, of course." The last sentence he said with a frown.
Daisy gave him a sympathetic look. "Enos, I really do appreciate you takin' them in. I know it's probably hard goin' to work and havin' to hear Boss and Rosco talk about tryin' to find them when you have them in your own house."
"It sure is. Sheriff, he's just worn ragged tryin' to figure out where they are. He thought for sure they'd be at Cooter's place, but of course they're not." He sighed. "I feel real bad for him sometimes, y'know. He always gets yelled at to do stuff, then he gets all nervous that he's gonna get fired if he don't do it, and then it makes him so desperate that he winds up yellin' at me for everything. But I don't take it personal anymore. He's tryin' to do his job, is all, he's just doin' it wrong."
Daisy laid a hand over his. "It's all right, Enos. You just do things the way you feel is right, and someday it will all turn out the way it should."
"I hope you're right, Daisy. I hope you're right."
Hazzard Courthouse
Eve got the candles lit, one on her desk, one farther down in the same room, and then one in each of the two offices. Rosco was holding Flash in his chair, the dog fast asleep and the owner scared to death of what was going on outside.
BOOM!
"Rosco, you sure you're all right?" Eve asked worriedly. She'd met people who didn't like storms before, heck her own sister didn't even like them, but this case beat all of them.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he quipped nervously, tensing up when the lightening flashed again.
"Y'know, my younger sister Rachel doesn't like storms either."
He gave her a pained look. "Is it that obvious? Me, that is?"
She smiled at him, remembering how he had grabbed her earlier in fear. "Just a little."
Their eyes met briefly through the candlelight. She looked so danged pretty, he almost forgot how to talk.
"You, uh—got any of that tea with ya?" he managed to ask, shifting his eyes so he wouldn't be staring.
Eve remembered saying the other day about the nerve-calming powers of tea and tried not to smile too big. "Yep, ya want some?"
"If ya don't mind."
She poured two cups, one for him and one for her, asking as she did so, "You like sugar in yours?"
"No, that's fine how it is," he told her. She handed him his cup, which he reached forward to get. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," she said, getting out her sugar bowl to put some in her cup.
Rosco couldn't help but watch. She'd get out one full teaspoon then level it off with her finger before dumping it in. She did this four times before stirring andfinally taking a sip.
"You always do that---level it off?" he had to ask.
"Um-hm, 'cause if you don't, all the extra sugar equals up to another teaspoon, then it would be like puttin' five teaspoons in instead of four, and that's just too sweet," she explained matter-of-factly. "I do the same thing to my coffee in the mornings, y'know, to wake up. During the day though, I have to calm down some so I drink tea. Sugar just makes it taste better." She took another sip. "You like chocolate cupcakes?"
"Are you kiddin' me? I love chocolate."
Eve reached down a little bit to bring up a small tin box that had about four nice-sized cupcakes in them and handed him one.
"You runnin' a kitchen back there or somethin'?" he joked, momentarily forgetting about the storm outside, which seemed to be growing a little quieter.
She laughed. "I should. I just like to bring somethin' to snack on. I made those late last night, two dozen of 'em. These four were the only ones left."
"From two dozen?"
She shrugged. "I may not can cook worth a flip, but my desserts could put Betty Crocker outta business. That's what my sisters say anyhow. They pigged out on 'em last night. I managed to steal these for my own selfish pleasure. Go ahead, try it."
He did, and the sweetness seemed to just melt in his mouth.
Eve grinned, seeing the dazzled look on his face that most people had when they first tried some of her desserts. "Good, huh?"
He swallowed. "Good? This is the best chocolate I ever had!"
"Hmm. Maybe I should go against Betty Crocker."
Rosco took another bite. Dang, even Boss would have to agree that these were better than Lulu's, and she cooked pretty good stuff.
"Your sisters live anywhere nearby?" he asked.
"I'll say, they live with me," Eve answered, taking another sip of tea. "Both are younger than me---Ali's twenty-five and Rachel's nineteen. Five years ago our parents died, so I had to take Rachel in to live with me from there. I got married three years ago, got divorced a year later, thank God. Only Rachel understands what was goin' on there since she lived with us. Ali kinda startedlivin' with uswhen she broke up with that boyfriend of hers around the same time as that.Then I got tired of the city, found a house out in the country, and drug those two with me. Of course, the didn't have much of a choice."
"I got a sister, too---Lulu. She's older than me, I'm the baby. Y'know, she's married to ol' Boss."
"Really?" she asked, shocked at that information. "You two are brothers-in-law? And he treats you like that?"
"Like what?"
"Hello, like dirt. Don't think I don't hear him fussin' at you when y'all are in his office. Sounds like a parent scoldin' a child in there half the time. I remember I always went ballistic when Nick--my ex--would fuss at Rachel about something."
"If my sister's around when he's yellin' at me, she gets onto him. She's lots bigger than he is, see, so he's kinda scared of her when she gets aggravated at him. Plus she threatens not to cook for him anymore if he don't quit."
"You two get along?"
"I've never known us to argue, 'cept when we were kids of course."
"I argue with Ali on a daily basis. She's the wild one.The shy one, Rachel, and I tend to get along. But now I don't see either one of them anymore. They've been hangin' around with uh---oh, what's their names . . . I think they're names are Bo and Luke?"
Rosco gave her a blank stare. Bo and Luke? Her sisters have been hanging around with Bo and Luke the whole time? What if they were with them when that Rick Terry fellow spotted them at the barn, orthere when the boys allegedly found that secret tunnel? He started getting butterflies in his stomach. If he ever found the boys, which he was sure he would sooner or later, he was almost positive that Boss would make him arrest both them and whoever was helping them out. Which meant Eve's sisters were going to end up in the slammer and he was going to be responsible for it and---oh dear. Eve wouldn't like that very much at all.
"Yeah, I think those are they're names. You know who I'm talkin' about?"
His mouth suddenly got dry. "Uh---Bo an' Luke? Um, sure I do, they're the Duke boys. Live with their cousin Daisy and Uncle Jesse on their farm. They're---they're pretty good ol' boys, them Dukes."
Hearing a sheriff say that the guys her sisters have been running around with were good boys made Eve feel a little better. "Good, I'd sure have a coronary if I found out they were criminals or somethin'."
That told Rosco that she must not know about their probation. On the one hand, it wasn't any of his business to tell her. On the other hand, she would probably appreciate knowing that information. But then, it wasn't like they were deranged murderers, they were just running moonshine. Yet, to Eve, it might not matter what they had done to go to prison, just the fact of the matter might count to her.
"Well---actually, there's probably somethin' you might want to----"
He was going to tell her about Bo and Luke when, unexpectedly, the lights came back on. Relief surged through him, but the bright lights sort of blinded him and made him forget what he was going to say. Flash startled awake, looking around in a confused manner, then wagged her tail that the power was on again.
"Good, maybe they'll stay on," Eve remarked, blowing out the candle on her desk. "Feel better, now?"
"Yeah, a little."
No sooner did he say that did the door swing open and a soaking wet Boss Hogg came stumbling in.
"My, oh, my, that was quite a storm we had, huh?" he asked in a cheery voice, taking off his hat and shaking off the water. "It started lightenin' up a bit so I decided to head on back down here before it got worse again, but it looks like it's calmed down for good now." He looked around him. "Y'all havin' a candlelit dinner or were ya tryin' to burn the place down?" He fanned the other candle out with his hat. His comment on candlelit dinners had Rosco's face turning red.
"Rosco, my office, now," Boss spat out, going past them and the desk.