Disclaimer: Maybe if I'm really, really good, Santa will bring me the rights for Christmas. And Bo Duke. Wrapped up in a pretty red bow. But somehow, I doubt it. :)

A/N: Well now that we've got instant messaging, we can send each other replies to reviews without having to post them here! Isn't that fun? Well, if you want a reply, you have to log in, or else there is no reply button. Although that still doesnt' guarantee you a reply because time is short these days. BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVIEWS! I treasure them...I revel in them...bloody hell, I do this FOR them! How pathetic is THAT:)

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Balladeer: I'll bet y'all can figure out on your own what happened here.

Henna stood in the shower, letting the water run down her body in thick streams, knowing that if she kept this up she was going to use all the hot water up, but she didn't care.

It had felt too good. Too familiar.

She'd tried to tell herself that it was just physical, this time. She had said before that Bo had gotten thicker…which meant there was more of him to taste. He'd always teased her, saying that it was the boy who was supposed to neck the girl, not the other way around, but it didn't stop him from moaning as her lips left shimmering trails across his body. Taking her sweet time all the way.

He'd learned a few things since they'd been together. Things she knew she hadn't taught him because she hadn't known much of them herself back then. She'd been as innocent as him, the first time. But now…it wasn't two teenagers fumbling in a pale imitation of the act of love. It was much more than an imitation.

But it wasn't the real thing.

It was only physical, she told herself, chanting it in her head again and again, even as sensation threatened to push it out and fill her with only the pulsating blaze of pleasure. Back and forth they fought and switched, surrendering to the other and then rising up again with a new counterattack. She had never spent a night like this with anyone, not ever.

She turned the hot water up higher, until her skin turned bright red. But eventually the supply gave out and she was drenched in icy streams. It had partly the same effect.

Getting out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a towel and then overlapped it with a robe. She found him exactly where she'd left him, in that narrow, twin bed in the corner of her room, only a part of him covered – the best part, her addled brain taunted – and the rest of him tanned and glowing against the white sheets. He was still asleep, his face half-down in the pillow, half of his dream-induced smile showing.

She sighed. She reached down and picked up his boot. Then she discarded it for one of her slippers, which was narrower and therefore offered less wind-resistance. Regret panged her for a moment, but she sternly told herself that it was only because it had been so damn good, and now it was over. It was like eating the best meal of your life and knowing you'd only have the memory. Nothing more.

She hefted the slipper over her shoulder, cocked it back and slung it like a professional baseball pitcher. It landed square against Bo's head.

"GET OUT!" she screamed.

He jerked away as if suddenly seized by a spasm. Feet kicked high in the air, arms flung away the sheet, exposing the rest of him, which nearly derailed her. But in a valiant effort she reached down for the other slipper and hurled it, this time catching him dead in the stomach.

"Oof!" came his grunt. He looked at her with wide, frightened eyes, the sleep having been thoroughly scared off and sent jumping out the window. "Henri-Mae, what—"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" she howled, loud enough to rattle the walls and echo into every room around them, as the walls were not thick. "YOU BASTARD!"

This time she did grab his boot and heft it at him. He barely caught it, shrinking back toward the wall. "What…what the hell did I do?" he managed, his voice somewhere between a yelp and a whine.

"You know PERFECTLY FUCKING WELL!" She was screaming so loud her cheeks ached with the stretch from the force. "I came to you last night and I needed a friend, and what do you do? YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME! HIGH FUCKING SCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN!" She picked up the other boot and this time he didn't get so lucky.

"Ow!" he yelped as it glanced off his naked shoulder. He scrambled for the foot of the bed, as far from her as he could get. "I don't know what you're talking about," he half-pleaded, half-defended, as he grasped for his clothes. The confusion on his face, and the plain hurt and wounded-ness of coming to and having such a wonderful night end in this fashion…if she could have taken it, she would have made him cry.

"GET OUT!" she screamed again, this time reaching for her own boots with their silver tipped toes. She brandished one at him like a weapon. "You sick…bastard! You jiggalo! You cheating slime!"

He was pulling his pants on, and in the effort he'd turned his back to her, attempting to preserve some part of his male pride. She took the invitation to start beating him on his bared back with the heel of her boot, and it left red welts. It was almost a shame to mark such a perfect sample of masculinity, but it gave her a vicious satisfaction that just spurred her on. "Hey!" he screamed, as the blows became harder. He tried to catch her hand, but she was way too fast for him, and too far ahead.

"You used me!" she ranted. "I was vulnerable and in pain and you USED me! You're sick! Just get out! GET OUT!"

Bo managed to wiggle his way around her and get his shirt. Not bothering to throw it on, as her pounding was becoming more intense and he knew his shirt wasn't going to do anything to soften it, he threw open the door and took off at a dead run, a fox exiting a hen-house.

She followed him, screaming all the way. "Son of a bitch!" she hollered. "Asshole!" And a bunch of other colorful insults not fit to print.

Balladeer: Boy, that girl's got a mouth on her, doesn't she?

Bo flew out the front door, only then realizing the stares he was getting. The humiliation of the moment was not lost on him, but instead of basking in it, he decided to do what any man in his situation would have done.

He made for the nearest set of bushes and disappeared into the surrounding woods.

Henna came to a screeching halt at the bottom of the stairs, right in front of the desk. Shelly looked at her, shock locking her jaw in place.

"Henna, what the hell?" she managed. "Was that…did he…?"

"Yes, and yes," Henna said, her voice like steel. "That son of a –"

"Henri-Mae, customers!" Shelly barked. Henna glanced at the nice elderly couple that was sipping coffee in the small sitting room. They both looked like they were either ready to drop dead or jump up and cheer. Couldn't tell which.

"Sorry," Henna said. She stepped over to the desk.

"What happened?" Shelly managed.

"What do you think happened?" Henna snapped back. "I took your advice and it blew up in my face!"

"I said it was a bad idea!" Shelly whined.

"No shit!" She glanced at the old people. One of them had clasped a hand over an ailing heart. She lowered her voice. "Well, apparently Bo had different ideas."

"You mean…he? He was the one…who…"

"You'd better believe it," Henna said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I try to make peace and he wants to make out. Next thing I know…well, you saw it."

"I did," Shelly breathed. Henna hid a smirk. Within an hour, it would be all over town that Bo Duke had seduced poor Henri-Mae who had just come back to town after her father's untimely death, and had been sent running when the newly-orphaned girl had come to her senses. One good ole boy's reputation effectively ruined.

It was just perfect.

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Bo did not get a warm reception when he got home. It was no secret that he hadn't come home the previous night. Uncle Jesse sat at the table, looking very stern.

Balladeer: Now it may be a common known fact that the Duke boys are all ladies' men, but if there's anything that Uncle Jesse has pounded into their heads over the years, it's to always show those ladies respect. And one-night-stands do not count as showing respect.

"Where the hell have you been?" Uncle Jesse asked as Bo came through the door, looking tattered and breathless, his shirt barely buttoned, hanging out at the waist of his jeans, and his boots covered with mud.

Bo did not know what to say. He had never lied to Uncle Jesse before, but there was no way he could admit the truth. Luckily, Jesse had been around the block many more times than years Bo was alive, and knew exactly what he was looking at.

"Sit down," he ordered his disheveled nephew. Bo miserably obeyed, head hung, hands on his lap. All he could hear was the heavy, labored breathing of Uncle Jesse trying to get himself under control.

Throughout the years, Uncle Jesse had strove to be a good role model to the trio he thought of as his own children. Part of that had been being wise enough to know when not to ask anything. But it was apparent, from Bo's burning cheeks and his manner of entering the house, like a fugitive, that wherever he'd been last night, and whatever he'd been doing, (or whoever in this case, Jesse added dryly) the situation hadn't ended well at all. Which meant there was serious potential for serious trouble – something the Dukes could not afford, not with Boss Hogg slavering at the jowls every other hour to get something on the cousins and put them away for life.

Still, the years of difference…getting Bo to talk about what had happened would be like opening a can of sardines with his teeth. Nearly impossible and extremely painful. Jesse cast his eyes across the table to Luke, who was watching both his cousin and his uncle warily, trying to measure out the situation.

"You talk to him," Jesse said finally, rising to his feet. He shuffled toward the door. "I can't hardly look at him right now."

Balladeer: Boy, Uncle Jesse is maaaaaaaad.

Daisy took the cue. "I'll be doin' the laundry if you need me," she said, excusing herself.

Luke drew in a breath, taking in Bo's appearance once more. But the removal of the female and elder of the house had made some of the tension in his body ease up.

"All right, Bo," Luke said plainly. "What happened."

Bo shot him a look. "You told me to go talk to her."

"Talk to her," Luke stressed. "Not…" he flapped his hand at Bo, "whatever you two were doin'."

Bo sighed, slumping even further in his seat. "God, Luke…I don't know…I don't know what happened."

"You don't?"

"Well," Bo pulled himself upright, pride kicking in. Bo had a deep-set need to explain himself away, to make everything fit in nice and tidy in his little Bo-Universe. "I was talking to her, and we were getting along, and it was nice…not like it used to be, it was awkward, I mean, I just kept thinking about all those years and how close we were…"

"Yeah..." Luke said, wanting to speed the reminiscing up a bit.

"Well, she asked me to put my arm around her. And the next thing I knew, she wanted me to kiss her. I can't say I didn't want to, Luke…I mean, I don't know what got into me, but all I wanted was to kiss her, and somehow she got me to say I'd do anything for her, and after I started kissing her she asked me to do…other things. Whenever I'd try to say no, she'd just bring up that I'd promised to do anything, and…well…"

"Bo," Luke said with a shake of his head. "How in the hell could you let a girl sucker you like that?"

Bo shrugged his shoulders. He'd never in his life had a girl attempt to sucker him before. He'd always been the one doing the chasing, he'd liked it that way, it gave him control. "I don't know, Luke," he said, distant. "All I could think of was how angry she was at me for so long, how much her running away hadhurt, and how I had a chance to make things right. I just got so caught up—"

"You got caught up all right," Luke said, "right into her bed. Well, then what happened?"

Bo had to bring himself back. The mere mention of the word "bed" had brought on a host of flashbacks from the night before, and he was pretty damn sure that he had never spent a night like that in his life. And yet with Henri-Mae it had felt as natural as jumping the General over a creek. Hell, a dozen creeks.

"Well, I woke up when she started throwing things at me," Bo said. "Shoes, mostly. She told me to get out, screamed all kinds of hell at me, told me I'd taken advantage of her…" Bo shrugged again, helpless. "I only did what she wanted."

"In a female's mind, sometimes those are the same things," Luke said with a heavy sigh, sitting back in his chair. "Did, uh…anyone see you?"

If Bo flushed any darker he was going to turn purple. "She chased me down the stairs of the hotel," he said. "Yeah, I think we were seen. And heard. And probably felt in a few surrounding counties."

Pressing his hand against his forehead,a dozen unpleasant thoughts went through Luke. At the least, this gossip was going to get all over town and do a lot to tarnish the Duke reputation. Sure, they were ladies' men, but they weren't perverts. And worst case scenario, Henri-Mae could decide to go to Rosco and press charges, and God-knew what kind of charge she would cook up, and Rosco would be only too glad to see it carried out.

"So what do I do?" Bo asked in a small voice.

"My advice?" Luke said, his thoughts not quite ordered yet. "Go to bed. Stay out of town for a few days. And whatever the hell else you do, don't go anywhere near Henri-Mae. Lie low and maybe all of this will blow over."

"You think?"

"Not yet," Luke said. "Gimme some time. Go on, you're exhausted, go try and rest."

Bo stood up, and Luke noticed that the man was trembling slightly. This struck him as extremely strange, as Bo had never shown even the merest sign of fragility. To see him brought so low…it was heart-wrenching. He didn't even attempt to argue the point of lying low as he crawled off to his own bed, where no footwear of any kind would be thrown in his general direction.

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A/N: Winged Seraph called it, as she usually does, and some of you others did, too. Now I'm ready to hear all the hell I'll get over it. Although, believe me, that first scene was FUN to write! Maybe I'm just twisted that way, LOL.