Disclaimer: Don't own the Dukes, I just play in their world.

A/N: If you've come this far, you should know that this is, indeed, a series, but I don't believe that it's the kind of series that you have to read in order. I don't read stories in order so I don't expect others to, either. If you haven't read "Bad Reputation," don't worry. If you read this story and you like it, you'll probably want to go back and read the first one just so you have background, because it really was much more of a set-up story than an actual story.

Summary: When two Federal Agents come to Hazzard ona case they won't discuss, Hazzard's new lady deputy finds herself involved in ways she'd rather not be. The irony is, she who lives and breathes to make Bo Duke's life miserable may wind up depending on him to save her hide. Pride goeth before a fall, and all that.

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"I gotcha, I gotcha!" Rosco cried, even as the Duke boys attempted to flee from where he stood on the steps of the Sheriff's office. They had come running out the front door, flying like a pair of birds who'd just had their wings unbound, all hair and limbs flinging everywhere.

Balladeer: That would be Bo and Luke Duke, running from the Sheriff once again. I'm sure they ain't broken no law, but that doesn't stop old Rosco from trying to get them behind bars.

They leapt down the steps and took off down the walk. They didn't take exception to the thick hedges that had always lined the building, didn't notice the person hunched down behind them. It wasn't like the Duke boys to miss such things – it was rumored that the whole Duke family had eyes like hawks, noses like wolves and the cunning of serpents, all with the guile of lambs. The person who hid from them was extremely clever, and small, compared to the size of the Sheriff chasing them.

Henri-Mae put her hands down flat on the concrete of the walk and swung out with her leg, using the other to pivot and steady herself. Sure enough, as her timing was nearly perfect – Bo's cowboy boot rising in mid-stride caught right on her gun belt, flinging him forward. He threw out his hands and luckily landed on the softer turf of the grass that wasn't too far away, but Luke wasn't so fortunate. The tip of her shoe had snagged around his ankle and he spun, landing spread-eagle on his back on the very hard concrete, winded.

Balladeer: And that would be Henri-Mae Locke, the newest deputy in the Hazzard County Sheriff's Department, and she's got it in for the Duke boys in ways Rosco never imagined.

Rosco cackled wildly. He'd rarely been so happy, not out of any malicious intent, Henri-Mae had come to realize, but because it was a game and he won so rarely. It was like the Sheriff's department and the Dukes were two gangs of rival boys who played together every Saturday, always against each other, always desperate to beat each other, and always ready to pick up wherever they'd left off, with nary a hard feeling between them.

She'd come to find it mildly amusing. Comforting, even. It allowed her to get in her nasty bits here and there, but never to incur any retribution. It also allowed her to feel far above all of them, even Boss Hogg, who always played the game extremely dirty.

"Git up, git up!" Rosco barked, kicking at Luke, who was gasping to refill his lungs with air even as Henri-Mae straightened herself and smoothed over the blue shirt underneath her close-fitting deputy jacket. She smiled, upping that image to two very vicious gangs of boys. Or rather, their side was vicious, she had to admit. They were always starting everything. All the Dukes had to do to get things going was show their faces in town.

"Rosco!" came Hogg's voice as he fluttered his fat butt down the steps, white coattails flinging behind him. He came to a halt when he saw the bruised Dukes crawling back to their feet, and Henri-Mae looking extremely smug. He did a double-check, and then smiled at her approvingly. "Knew I could count on you, Deputy Locke."

"Oh, I can't take credit, Sheriff," Henri-Mae replied, having figured Rosco out perfectly by day two, and not about to lose him as her strongest ally. "The Sheriff pushed them into the trap and I just swung the door shut, that's all."

Rosco looked extremely pleased with himself. She was vaguely reminded of the image of Wile E. Coyote. Yes, that was Rosco to a T. "That's right, that's right, taught her ever'thin' I know."

"That's why yew got so little left," Hogg muttered. "Arrest them!" he barked. Henri-Mae reached for the younger of the Duke cousins and grabbed his wrist, spinning him so that it nearly twisted behind his back.

Balladeer: I swear that girl is always anxious for the chance to slap cuffs on Bo. And I'd be willing to be money that he even likes it, a little bit.

"Not so rough!" he snapped at her, although it lacked venom. It was his way of being rebellious, she'd come to learn. Sometimes, she thought he rather enjoyed it when she cuffed him. He never tried any of those stupid tricks on her like he did on Enos or Cletus, of which she'd heard many stories during long, quiet shifts in the office, drinking coffee.

Being a deputy in Hazzard County really was turning out to be a fun profession. She had never thought she'd enjoy it so much. But she would have rather had her fingernails torn out with pliers than admit it aloud.

Henri-Mae stepped back and let Rosco usher the boys back through the doors, down into the jail cell. The first time she'd had the pleasure of swinging the iron bars shut, she had immediately realized that the key-ring hook was entirely too close to the door, and had moved it at that moment. Which earned her a few bonus points in Boss' book, and a scowl from Rosco. She later told him it had been his idea, and he bought it easily.

"It's gonna be a beautiful day," Rosco said, beaming at her in his childish glee. Henri-Mae had already made her way across the room and sat down at the guard desk, propping up her feet. She was the only person that Boss didn't unceremoniously shove back onto the floor. Possibly the large black motorcycle boots were a bit too intimidating for his pudgy little hand.

"That it is, Sheriff," she said, pulling at the ends of the braids she had wound into her long, golden-brown hair. Two of them, one down each shoulder, had given her a bit of a Dorothy look, but it didn't bother her. She gave Bo a cheeky grin from where he leaned on the bars, hands dangling. "And the view is looking just fine."

His lips twisted. To an outsider, one would have thought this was not just routine, but a sign of camaraderie. They would have missed the particularly malicious glimmer in Henri-Mae's eye as the smile faded, but Bo didn't. He never did. His smile wavered and then vanished at the reminder that while Rosco and Boss might be half-playing, she wasn't.

"So who's gonna do the paperwork?" Rosco queried as he started toward the exit, Boss having already made his.

"I guess I will," she sighed. "Gotta make sure to keep that running record we have on the Duke boys updated. What did you arrest them for this time, Sheriff?"

Balladeer: Usually, that was Jesse's line. Rosco sometimes had a hard time answering it with any kind of patience, but for Henri-Mae he made an exceptional effort.

"Unpaid tickets," he said. "Lots of them."

"That's not true!" came Luke's voice, and both officers turned their eyes to him. "We came in to pay a ticket and you arrested us!"

"A ticket that was ten minutes overdue on its payment!" Rosco announced. "Bring it on up to me when you're done, Henrietta, so's I can file it. Under D for Dead Ducks!" He chuckled manically again, and headed up the steps.

"Boy, Rosco," Luke called after him, "I didn't know you knew that many letters of the alphabet!"

"Weak, Luke," Henri-Mae said, not looking at him. "Really weak."

As the lady deputy rustled through the desk drawer for the right forms, Bo saw an opportunity and took it, but not without Luke giving him a good nudge. "Henrietta?" he called, trying hard not to make it mocking. "You let him call you Henrietta?"

Balladeer: One thing you gotta say about Bo, he knows how to push that girl's buttons.

It was bait. She knew she shouldn't rise to it. She rarely did, unless she was in a particularly cross mood. She wasn't in that mood today, but it was a particular button that she just didn't like being pressed. "What's it to you, Duke boy?" she said, using the voice she had only ever used before when going into nasty-looking bars and having to keep away unwanted attention. It had a high-pitched coldness to it that usually was an instant turn off. It just seemed to goad Bo on.

"Nothin', just never thought I'd see the day when Henri-Mae let a man call her Henrietta, that's all."

She narrowed her eyes. "He won't call me Henri-Mae, and I really don't like being referred to as Locke. It's the lesser of two evils…unlike what I'm looking at here."

Bo grunted, continued to lean on the bars, and Henri-Mae heard a clinking sound. She had to smile.

"Luke, when are you going to learn that you can't get past me?" she said, standing up. She walked over to where the key ring had been disjoined from its place and promptly shoved it back into place. "Face it, redneck, I'm too smart even for you."

Luke gave her what was supposed to be a dirty look, but Uncle Jesse had raised him too well for that. "There's a first time for everything," he said, and just as Henri-Mae turned to go back to her seat, she saw Uncle Jesse standing in the doorway, looking rather disheveled and annoyed.

"Mr. Duke," she greeted him dispassionately, coming around to sit back down at her desk. "Can I help you?"

"I came for my boys," the older man grumbled. "How much is the bail?"

"Boss Hogg hasn't set the bail yet," she said, twirling her pen. "If you'd like to come back tomorrow—"

"I ain't comin' back tomorrow," he growled

Balladeer: He sounds more like a sleepy dog than an angry bear.

"I'm here now, Cooter told me what happened, and I came to get them out. It's usually two hundred; I'll just leave it with you and take my boys. Come on."

Henri-Mae straightened. This was a first. True, she hadn't been here long, but usually it took a bit for Jesse to get down here. No doubt Cooter had spotted the tripping incident. And that was possibly the reason for the particularly evil eye he was giving her. She'd never had to go toe to toe with Jesse before. Nobody in the department, not even Boss himself, could hold his own for very long against the patriarch of the Dukes. Although Boss could usually hold his own long enough just to get what he wanted.

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, with that same frosty coldness she'd used before on Bo. "But bail hasn't been set yet and I don't—"

Jesse turned around, and for the first time she noticed that he had a white gunny sack in his hand, the kind usually made for toting money around from bank to bank. "Listen, girl, don't give me any lip, I'm not in the mood." She eyed him carefully, noticing that his cheeks were slightly flushed. He lifted up the bag and shook it at her. "I also came by here to drop something off for you, something I'm pretty sure you'll want, so don't give me a hard time or I'll change my mind."

She frowned. "What are you talking about?" She had meant it to be scathing, but since that one time she'd exploded at Jesse, she'd been unable to work up any real malice toward him. Maybe it was because her father's face flashed mercilessly through her mind whenever he was around. "Something of mine? How did you get it?"

Jesse sighed, struggling with his patience. He set down the sack carefully and pulled it open. "A few months after your mother…after that," Jesse said, also knowing the limits of propriety and being a kind man at heart, "your father came to me and asked me to hold something for him, until further notice. I've been keeping guard of it for a long time now, but now that you're back and your father is gone, I don't see a reason not to return it to you." He pulled something heavy out of the bag, and she realized it was a rather large, ornately carved box, the kind used for keeping jewelry.

She'd seen that box before. She had always thought that her mother had taken it with her. But here it was, right in front of her, sitting on a pile of papers on the edge of her desk.

"You can open it," Jesse said, as if speaking of a Christmas present. Her expression showed curiosity, but not excitement.

Balladeer: Anything having to do with Henri-Mae's mother is sure to bring up some bad feelings…

She pried open the wooden lid. Inside were a few bags of velvet, and her throat tightened as she recognized them. She picked up the green velvet box and pulled it open, revealing the amber and gold ring inside, the amber cut instead of smoothed, so that its facets glimmered with a golden glow – like her father's hair had been, the hair she'd inherited from him.

"You had this?" she asked, not hearing how small her voice became. It was being choked by the memory of him giving her that ring, and her gushing about it because it reminded her of him, and how she always envied his beautiful, honey-toned hair.

"Yeah," Jesse said. "But it's yours…I wasn't sure if you wanted it, after having packed everything up from your daddy's farm and putting it in storage, but I figured I'd let you make that decision."

"Thank you, Mr. Duke," she managed, swallowing the lump.

Jesse looked down at his hands. "You know," he said, very gently, the grumpiness vanishing, "you used to call me Uncle Jesse."

She snapped the green ring box shut, shoved it into the wooden case and then pulled the drawstring tight on the gunny sack. She shoved the whole mess away from her like a little girl shoving away vegetables she didn't want to eat. "Well, my father used to be alive, too. Things change." She looked up at him, eyes suddenly flinty. She stood up, and waved her hand. "Look, pay your bail, take your boys, and go." The stone in her voice matched her eyes.

Jesse sighed and nodded, setting down his two hundred dollars on the desk. She didn't bother to count it, just went over, snatched up the keys, and let the boys out. She didn't once look at any of them. She just wandered back to her desk and sat down, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Thanks for ruining my day, Mr. Duke," she muttered as they vanished up the steps.

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Balladeer: To catch you all up on a few things, something you gotta know is that Henri-Mae's mother left when she was ten years old.

Life hadn't been much better before that. The woman was a drunk. She hid it behind a smile, bloodshot eyes and an overly cheerful disposition, but sometimes she would get riled up, and nobody was safe. True, the woman never had raised a hand to Henri-Mae, but when the woman up and left when Henri-Mae was ten, the girl hadn't quite recovered.

Private school had attempted to tame her, to no success. Finally out of options, Cyrus Locke had been forced to put his daughter in public school, at the late age of seventeen, where she'd promptly taken up the cause of attempting to land the football team's star linebacker, Bo Duke. She hadn't planned on them falling in love, and certainly not on him breaking her heart.

Stupid ring. She hadn't seen it in so long, she had forgotten about its existence, but one glance brought it all rushing back. Playing in her mother's jewelry box, getting dressed up and playing make-believe. Her mother in one of her drunken highs dressing up with her, laughing like hyenas, her not knowing why Mommy was so happy but damn grateful for it.

With a heavy sigh, Henri-Mae slid the sack into the drawer and pushed the door shut. Maybe she'd forget about it. Maybe Boss would find it, think it was open game, and sell the damn thing. Her stomach curled at that thought, but it curled tighter at the thought of having it in her room at the boarding house.

There were options…she could take it to Shelly, let her have it. She and her husband lived comfortably enough, managing the boarding house, but they didn't have too many fancy things. She'd appreciate it, and possibly keep slipping Henri-Mae her meals for free. Or maybe she'd take it to Lula Marie and have her sell it through her online business. Did Lula Marie do things like that? She was sure the woman could, if she wanted to. She was the computer/internet guru of Hazzard and possibly all the surrounding counties outside of Capitol City combined. Or she could shove it over to Tonya and have the woman pawn it. She knew all the best shops in Atlanta, and could probably haggle her a good deal.

It really wasn't worth the effort, Henri-Mae told herself. She would just forget about it. Forget that it was there. There was enough going on in her life to keep her busy. She'd just let it slip her mind…

Such thoughts were in her brain as she was bringing up the two hundred dollars bail for Boss' safe. As soon as she set foot in the main office, however, something caught her eye.

A man. Tall, lanky, and slick, were the words that immediately came into her head. He had a full head of thick black hair and a matching five-o'clock shadow-like goatee on his chin. He looked more like he'd slept in his suit for forty-eight hours and then rolled out of bed, slapped on some aftershave and gone to work. There was something dark and daring in his brown eyes, something that screamed playboy and letch at the same time. The rumpled look of his suit did little to take away the perfect cut, even if it wasn't high quality.

She'd seen a lot of Feds, but this one had broken the mold.

There was a woman standing behind him, her back to them as she was directly addressing Rosco and Boss. She was a good match for him, and was the kind of woman that Henri-Mae wished she could be -- obviously tough and no-nonsense, but also breathtakingly beautiful, with a long mane of white-gold hair and a heart-shaped face.

And then he winked at her. Quickly, so quickly she was sure it was just a flutter of his eye.

Balladeer: Two minutes and I already don't trust that boy.

"Oh, here's Deputy Locke," Boss said, removing his cigar from his mouth. "One of my most reliable men."

At Rosco's look, Henri-Mae stepped forward, extending her hand. "He means, one of Sheriff Coltrane's most promising students," she said, as the other woman took it.

"Agent Gabrielle Stone," the woman replied, her eyes an unusual tint of blue-green. "This is Agent Danny Farrell, we're here on official F.B.I. business."

"Agents Stone and Farrell will be setting up temporary headquarters here," Rosco informed her, "as they work to solve their case. With our help, of course," he added with a Rosco-like chortle.

"Pleasure to meet you, Deputy Locke," came Agent Farrell's voice, like butter soft leather that had been so worn away it was nearly rough.

"Henrietta," Rosco said, "maybe you could go clean up those spare desks in the back room—"

"For you and Rosco," Boss interjected. "We'll let the agents have the ones in the front."

Henri-Mae frowned. So they were being bumped. Oh well, she should have seen it coming. "No problem, Boss," she said, throwing Rosco a commiserating grin before going off to do what she was told.

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A/N: This story, by the way, is finished, and the next chapter is waiting for posting. SO just leave your little review at the purple button down yonder and it'll get the next update up just that much faster. Thank's, y'all. :)