Disclaimer: Don't own, yadda yadda yadda...

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Henri-Mae was in such a bad mood that it didn't seem to matter that she had to set foot in her father's house. Her head felt so dark and gloomy that it had hardly any affect on her at all. It was strange, but her mother had once said that the best time to tell someone something really awful was when they were already upset—that way the could get all the bad feelings out at once and not break it down into tiny pieces. Kind of like ripping off a band-aid.

As she usually did when thoughts of her mother arose, Henri-Mae succinctly changed the subject…although there was no one to talk to except herself.

She looked around the kitchen, at the wet stains on the old, worn wood of the table where her tears still left marks, and set down the cardboard boxes she'd gotten from the back of Lula's store that morning. It was best to start in the kitchen, she thought. It was less personal.

That was, of course, before she started going through the cabinet of glasses and mugs, and old memories came unbidden in ways she had never imagined. She was about to have something akin to a nervous breakdown when the telephone rang.

"Hello?" she said, sounding like she'd just rolled out of bed.

"Hello!" came a thick, southern voice on the other side. "This is Henrietta Mae Locke?"

"Yes?" she said, memories prickling at her. Did she know this man? How did he know her?

"This is Jefferson Davis Hogg, Boss Hogg," the man said, sounding as if his chest were pumped full of pride at just his own full name. "I wanted to express to you my deepest, most sincere condolences on account of your loss. Your father was a fine, fine man, highly respected member of the community, and he will be mourned by us all."

She twisted her lips. Something about this Boss Hogg…he was one hundred and eighty degrees away from any kind of older male figure she'd ever had in her life. Not even the crooks who'd attempted to take her under wing had managed to ooze this kind of sugar-sweet slime. And yet it was endearing, in a peculiar way.

"Can I help you, Mr. Hogg?" she said.

"I just wanted to see if there was anything you needed," Hogg went on, oblivious to the clipped tone of her voice. "I know that you're in the process of taking care of your father's affairs and such matters can be difficult, I understand."

She wanted to snort. She glanced around the room. No way she could tell the truth – that every time she even walked into this house, she nearly had some kind of emotional fit. "Well, you know how it is," she said.

"If there are any particular legal matters you wish to settle, I want you to know that you're welcome to avail yourself to my own personal law firm, Hogg and Hogg."

She scowled. "I thought you were the county commissioner, Mr. Hogg," she said.

"Well, I'm sort of a chameleon," he said, more of that pride. "I attained a degree in paralegals and am authorized to give any kind of legal advice necessary, in lieu of an acting attorney in these parts."

Somehow that didn't quite gel. "Uh huh," she said, stalling. "And what kind of legal advice do you think I might need, Mr. Hogg?"

"Well, there is the matter of your father's will." Now the greed oozed in – she smelled it over the phone wires. It was almost refreshing, having some good old fashioned underbelly in this town full of good-doers. "Your father had long since paid off the mortgage of his farm, and now you are the sole owner of his property. Such a situation can cause all kinds of complications, you know—"

"Yeah," she said, catching on quick. "Like, how much can I sell it for?"

"Oh, you're thinking of selling?" The innocence in his voice was so fake…"Well, although you could make a sizeable income joining the farming community, I didn't think that a city girl like yourself would want to invest her time and effort into such an enterprise. Selling the farm would make you a nice chunk of change, that is for sure."

"Uh huh," and now she was smiling, "any ideas in who might be interested in buying it?"

"Well…" He drawled, as if stalling himself. She almost snapped at him to spit it out, but to be honest, this was rather fun. "I have been looking into the purchase of some property myself for some time. Perhaps we could have a friendly conversation about it? In my office, in a few hours? Say, around two o'clock?"

Balladeer: This does not bode well.

She checked her watch. It sounded good…a plan was already hatching in her head and her exhaustion was catching up to her. A nap and some quiet time to think would fit into those hours just perfectly. "I'll be there, Mr. Hogg," she said, and hung up.

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"Why did you sleep with her?" Luke asked. He was in the process of tearing apart an old junker that he and Bo had bought a few weeks ago, but until then hadn't had much time to pick at. Now that Bo was sort of confined to the farm, Luke had attempted to get his help, but Bo was a bit stuck.

And if there was anyone who had a chance of understanding how Bo's brain worked, it was Luke.

"Same reason I slept with her in high school, I guess," Bo said, dejected. "I…I wanted to. I've always wanted to."

"And no other girl's been able to turn your head like that?" Luke asked, letting the junker's hood come down with a soft bang. "Even after all the times you've fallen in love. Even with that Carnival girl?"

"Her name was Diane," Bo said. "And, well…" Truth be told, he didn't have much credibility when it came to matters of the heart. Then again, neither did Luke.

"You're just lucky Uncle Jesse didn't skin you alive," Luke muttered. "Underneath that beard he's got the Ten Commandments tattooed down his chest."

Bo ducked his head down farther. It just made this kind of confinement more difficult, knowing that Uncle Jesse was ashamed of him. "Don't keep reminding me," he mumbled.

"Sorry," Luke said, smiling sympathetically. "Look, I know what it's like, getting your foot caught in the door. I was that way with Roxanne. Look how that turned out."

Bo sighed. His brain was going back to last night again, at the feeling of having Henri-Mae's arms around him, how good and right it had felt. How they had started kissing, deeper and heavier, and how he'd tried to be reasonable and push her away, but she just kept coming. Not pushy, but softly, using her familiarity against him. And when she'd suggested, eyes as dark as coal and cheeks just tinted with an evening blush, that he go back to her room with him, he'd refused, a couple of times over.

"Do you remember our first time, Bo?" she said. "In my bedroom, when my father was away? Of course, that wasn't really our first time, was it?"

"Henri-Mae, you're not yourself. I don't think it's right."

She chuckled, in a disarming way. "I think that was your line when we took that little 'camping' trip. I guess that's the first real time, isn't it?"

"I…I still have that tent," he said, in spite of himself.


"You do?" The surprise in her eyes had shown so genuine.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I…uh…well, I don't use it…I just keep it under my bed…for… you know…emergencies."

"What kind of emergencies?" she teased, tugging at his jean waist.

"Not those kind!" he said quickly, feeling flustered. Girls didn't fluster him, he flustered them. But she had always had the upper hand on him, from minute one. "Just…you know…"

"As a keepsake?" she whispered. He could hardly believe himself when he nodded yes. She giggled. "That's sweet. And twisted," she added, in that old, familiar, bold-as-brass-tacks kind of way that he'd always loved about her. "Not many boys have the place of their first time complete with ready-to-assemble instructions." Then she shifted nearer to him, body heat invading body heat. "You ever…think about me? When I was gone? Pull out the tent for a little…reverie?"

He wasn't sure what to say. The thought of masturbation in mixed company, no less, was unspeakable, but the God's honest truth was, whenever he did, he could still smell the plastic of the tent, hear the nylon of the sleeping bags, feel the cold of the zippers as they brushed up against them.

She knew his reaction. But her voice turned small and vulnerable, and it nearly broke his heart. "Bo, did you ever think about me?" she asked. "While I was gone?"

"Every…every day," he managed over his own tongue.

"Don't you wish we could go back there?" she said, whisper soft against his neck, as she was so close to him now he couldn't see her, only feel her. "Back before it all…went wrong? Back when we were so happy?"

He nodded. He did wish. Every day he wished. Each time he smiled at a new girl, it was like a new possibility of going back to that place, finding that with someone again, having it back. But it never worked, he'd never commit…first of all because of how badly he'd messed up, and second because, well…they were not her.

"Bo?" came Luke's voice, shattering the memory of the moment he actually gave in, took her hand, and let her lead him back to the boarding house. "You with me, cousin?"

"Yeah," Bo muttered, but couldn't help but add silently, unfortunately.

"Look," Luke said, coming around to stand in front of him, where he was stretched out on the General's hood. "You want my advice, you have to be straight with me. You gotta tell me the truth. Are you upset because she's ruining your reputation with this story, or are you upset because you thought the two of you were getting back together last night, and that didn't happen? I mean, which is it? Because until you know that, you can't know what to do about it."

Bo took several moments to consider. He had lived with a reputation for years – that had never bothered him. Because none of it was true, and he could easily tune it out, because he knew what he was. But he could clearly remember, standing in her room that morning, feeling humiliated and betrayed, feeling angry at her for tricking him, making him think wonderful things and then yanking them away with the malice of a playground bully.

So what had made him leave? Why hadn't he stayed and fought with her? Guilt, he realized. Guilt over how he'd betrayed her years ago. Guilt over knowing how he had wronged her and had to live with that every day for the rest of his life. It had been pure gut instinct when it came to her to repent and run. The pain of doing otherwise was unthinkable.

"Hell if I know," Bo muttered, "but I think it's the second thing you said. About not getting back together."

"So you want to be back together with her?" Luke asked, one eye narrowed as if they were playing poker.

It was embarrassing to admit it, but just slightly, Bo nodded.

"Then you gotta fight for her," Luke said simply. "And the only way to win with a woman is to make her think she's won over you. You catch her on her own, nobody else around, and you call her on her crap. Then you completely throw her for a loop and give yourself up – tell her you'll do anything for her. Don't make it sound like you're begging her to take you back; that'll just give her fuel on her fire. Basically tell her that whatever she asks you to do, you'll do it. She'll be so stunned, after what's happened, she won't know what to say, and she'll probably get so confused she'll wind up throwing herself at you."

Bo ran this plan through his head. "I don't know, Luke," he said slowly. "This is Henri-Mae we're talking about. Chances are she'll tell me I have to run through the town square naked holding a sign saying I cheated on her and I'm a worthless dog who doesn't deserve to live."

Luke shrugged. "One thing I've learned about women is that you can't beat them at the game of pride. You might think yours is worth so much, but it's the one thing that'll keep you from getting what you want. You drop the pride and she'll give in, you mark my words."

"I'll think about it," Bo sighed, resting his head back on the windshield. But what he really wanted to do was take a nap, as he felt he'd been doing too much thinking as it was.

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By the time Henna made her way back to the boarding house, there was a message for her.

"Boss Hogg called," Shelly said, hanging her the note. "He wanted to know if you would stop by his office, either at the Sheriff's or at the Boar's Nest. Or just give him a call if you didn't feel like coming over."

Henna took the note silently and headed back up to her room. No doubt he'd called here first, looking for her, and then the house second. She crumpled the note and tossed it into her wastebasket. All she wanted currently was a nap.

It wasn't fair, she thought as she threw herself down on the old bed. The smell of Bo had not left it, making it apparent that the housekeeper had not changed the sheets but only made the bed. She was the victim here, ultimately. She was the one who was destroyed. Not Bo. Bo got exactly what he wanted, just like always.

You can't go there, she told herself firmly. It would just ignite everything again. Remembering that first afternoon in her bedroom, the "third base," as it was called, and then the night in the camping tent, both of them having made up some excuse to get out of their houses. The ground had been hard but Bo had brought extra sleeping bags, and she'd grabbed extra pillows, and the lumps of the earth under them had not even been felt.

She drifted in and out of sleep, thinking bitter thoughts of Bo with other girls over the years, of him making them do the things to him that she had shown him, that she had tenuously, for her, experimented on him, and how he had learned how to do things he'd only heard of in vague comments from Luke, and a few he'd never even imagined himself doing. When she awoke, the numbers on her clock blazed one forty-five, and she grumbled at herself, barely managing to stand up and get out the door without falling down the stairs.

When she reached Boss' office, the chubby man was waiting for her eagerly, chomping away on a brand new cigar he'd just lit from a fancy gold lighter on his desk.

"Miss Locke," he greeted her cheerfully, and she smoothed down her hair for the fifteenth time, and determined that it just needed a good washing. "Glad you could make it."

"Me too," she said, settling herself into a comfortable seat across from Boss' desk.

"You've had time to think about my offer?" Boss ventured.

"I have," she said, everything snapping back into ultra clear focus. "You wanted to buy my father's farm?"

"I was considering it," he mused, looking at his cigar between his sausage-like fingers. "For the right price."

She smirked. "Mr. Hogg, I certainly hope that you wouldn't suggest that I'd sell my father's farm, my family legacy and birthright, for less than it was worth."

"Oh, I'm sure not," he said with a smile. "And I know exactly how much it's worth." He slid a piece of paper across to her.

Balladeer: Now to be honest, Henri-Mae had no idea how much her daddy's farm was worth, so she didn't know if Boss' price was fair or not. But she'd played poker and done other kinds of gambling in her short life enough not to let him see her twitch. Still, it seemed like a considerable amount of money. Then again, any amount does when you're flat broke.

"Let's say I were to agree to this price," she said slowly. "There would be a few conditions."

He arched an eyebrow. "Like what?" he said.

She stood up, stretching her legs. Energy was flowing back into her, giving her thinking room. "Mr. Hogg, are you aware that I have a criminal record?"

The look on his face indicated that indeed, he didn't know that.

She nodded. "Two years I spent in prison. Want to know what for?"

"What for?" he echoed.

"Grand theft," she said with a sigh. "I got off very lightly because the people I was working for had good representation. I kept my mouth shut, did my time, and earned my reward. The only reason I'm here is because my father died. But I'm not really planning on going back. That life has gotten a bit boring, and I'm looking for something a bit closer to the homestead. Problem is, it's hard to get a job when you have a criminal record, you know what I mean?"

He eyed her warily. "Well, if it's a job you need, that's no problem. We need a new waitress at the Boar's Nest since Cindy Lou quit."

She shook her head, nose wrinkled in disgust. The thought of working side by side with Daisy turned her stomach. She never could stand that girl. "No, I don't want to be a waitress," she said, looping her thumbs through her jean belt loops and turning toward the window.

Boss seemed to fluster for a moment. "Well, you'd have to understand why I would want you working at my bank, but there are lots of other businesses I own that—"

"How about here?" she said, looking at him over her shoulder. "How about you make me the new deputy?"