Disclaimer: I don't think anyone is interested enough in this fic to try and sue me over it, but all the same, please don't.

A/N: I promised myself I wouldn't get whiny over this. But according to the Stats, about a80 or so people were following the first Bad Reputation. Did it stink that badly? Because I've gotten two reviews for this story. Two! And this is an active category, new stories get added regularly. I'm disappointed. I had 64 hits on the last chapter and two people reviewed.

Come on, people. We don't get paid for this. The only other joy in fanfic (other than the obvious, playing with other people's toys) is getting reviews. Feedback. Critiques. It isn't kind to flip through fanfics and not give them a chance, and if you've gone that far, a few words of opinion, politely stated, are always appreciated. So be kind and review...c'mon people! Every time someone doesn't review a fanfic writer gets a wrist-cramp! (it sounded better than "falls down dead.")

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Balladeer: People often made the mistake of thinking that Shelly Dunbar was just another pretty face. Truth was, she could sell an umbrella in the desert. And it so happened that she talked Henri-Mae into helping out with the monthly car wash to raise money for the orphanage.

The cars filled the lot. Everybody pitched in for this occasion, bringing down their cars, which usually required more than one washing a month, and lining them up down the dirt roads for their chance to donate ten dollars to the poor orphans.

Henri-Mae shielded her eyes from the bright glare of the sun. If she wasn't elbow deep in suds and icy cold water, she might have been uncomfortable. As it was, she'd managed to escape getting her shirt too wet, and the shorts were a modest enough length to keep her thighs from getting chapped. Hair pulled back tightly into a braid, she was ready to wash.

Not that she liked it much.

How Shelly had talked her into this, she wasn't sure. Sometimes Henri-Mae wondered if Shelly just put on that pretty smile and fluttered her eyelashes and played cute to keep everyone from knowing what a cunning snake she was. Anyone who could manage a business for Boss Hogg and not wind up owing him her soul had to be clever.

Truth was it just reminded Henri-Mae why she and Shelly were still friends.

Something was running around her feet. Smudging the stray hairs from her eyes, she realized it was little four-year-old Molly, Shelly's daughter. Their two year old, Tom, was staying with his paternal grandmother for the day, too young to be of help and too old to stay out of trouble without continuous watching. The girl was giggling.

"Can't hit me with the water!" she chanted, sing-song. "Can't hit me, can't hit me!"

Henri-Mae smirked. She liked the little brat, as much as she bridled at the thought of being called "Auntie Hen," which had become her new nickname. The girl had a serious rebellious streak in her, and yet was without the typical selfish whiny-ness so common for four-year-olds.

Lifting up the hose, Henri-Mae pressed down and shot. The spray barely glanced off Molly's heel as the girl giggled even louder. "Can't hit, can't hit!" she called, more loudly.

Accepting the challenge, Henri-Mae continued to follow the trail the girl left behind, squirting randomly. She figured she deserved a break, after having tackled three cars all on her own while some of the other volunteers went to lunch. And Molly was proving a very difficult target – maybe she could write it off as target practice later, for Rosco, she thought with a small laugh.

Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Bright orange and horribly obnoxious, the General Lee slipped down the street, its wheels collecting the newly-made mud of the road from where the hose water had soaked it. It carved its own path, and the two occupants waved at the passer-bys, as the Dukes were simply beloved by all of Hazzard County.

Daisy had already come by, earlier that morning, on her way to the Boar's Nest, which was open early for lunch that day. Boss was never one to miss out extra business. Of course, he was also quick to demand that the sheriff cars be washed for free, since they were all government employees and it was a public service. When it came to his shiny white Cadillac, however, Shelly drew the line, and somehow got Boss, who never relinquished money, to donate twenty dollars for an extra buff job.

She wasn't watching where she was squirting the hose. She turned around in time to hear a familiar shriek, and for a moment felt a wave of triumph – had she finally drenched little Molly? But no, the green eyes staring wide at her in shock and incredulity belonged to the little girl's mother – who had managed to keep her backside dry until that moment.

"Oh, hell," Henri-Mae muttered, but was starting to laugh in spite of herself, as Shelly's panty-lines began to show. "Uh, sorry!" she tried a little louder.

"Sure," Shelly said, drawing a breath as she reached down for the bucket of soapy water at her feet. "Sure you are."

"I was aiming for Molly!" Henri-Mae protested, backing up. She raised the hose between them. "Don't make me do it again!"

"Don't worry," Shelly said, reaching down with one free hand and yanking at the hose where it lay on the ground. Abruptly Henri-Mae found her hands quite empty. "I won't."

"I said I was sorry!"

"And I heard you," Shelly said, stalking nearer, bucket raised. Henri-Mae had her hands out, her only defense, and wasn't watching where she was going. She bumped into something soft, and jerked to move around it, just as Shelly raised the bucket and started to pour.

In a matter of seconds, Shelly was staring at her husband, head-to-toe soaked with soapy water. He was looking at her with the same expression she'd been given Henri-Mae not a moment ago.

"Oh, sorry, honey," Shelly said, smirking.

"No, but you're going to be," Lloyd said, raising the hose. He hit her full in the face even as she went rushing backwards. Sputtering and glaring, she turned on Henri-Mae, grabbing up the other hose.

"This is your fault!" Shelly said, her voice sing-song and not the least bit angry.

Henri-Mae was laughing so hard she couldn't get her legs to work. But there was a tug on her hand and she felt herself being pulled to the side, just as the spray came right at her.

"Run, Auntie Hen, run!" came Molly's voice.

Chaos erupted.

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Bo had just come up to the lot when the scene broke out. The Dunbars and Henri-Mae were occupied with some kind of game of water-tag, and it was not a sight he had expected to see. First Henri-Mae was running from Shelly and a hose with Molly's hand clutched in hers, and then Henri-Mae had seized up the little girl and was holding her in front of her like a shield. Molly was giggling hysterically, dripping wet, even as Shelly was being sprayed from behind by her husband, who was drenched in suds.

Bo watched for a moment, eyes caught on Henri-Mae. She was smiling…that was a rare enough sight nowadays. Sure, she smirked and looked smug and grinned wickedly, but right now her face was bright and open and relaxed, and the laughter he remembered so well from their earlier days rang across the lot in long peals. She ran with Molly in her grip like Bo used to run with the football, shielding the girl carefully but at the same time letting Molly take all the water hits.

He missed her like this. Happy, free. It made him ache to see her now, and know it was such a rare sight. Sick as he was of her harassment, and as much as he liked to tell himself that she'd gotten her pound of flesh and seriously needed to lay off him, moments like this never failed to make him realize how profoundly Henrietta Mae Locke had changed in the last seven years.

Because of him.

"What can we do you for, boys?" came Cooter's voice, breaking Bo from his reverie. Luke was eyeballing him, and Bo snapped himself out of it.

"Well, we need to get the windows rolled up," Bo said, "if we're gonna wash the car."

The laughter was turning into loud shrieks now, until the volunteers had nearly forgotten what they were there to do. Cooter pulled open the doors and jimmied the window mechanism, and slowly but surely brought up the glass that hadn't seen daylight in possibly years.

"They sure are having a lot of fun over there," Luke said. "I wonder if they could get that pretty Fed agent to join in, maybe get her to wear a white T-shirt."

Cooter chuckled. "Maybe we could talk them all into a white T-shirt contest," he suggested.

"Shame on you," Bo said, whipping his head around. Henri-Mae, as much as she liked Cooter, as he kept her old bike running without charging her an arm and leg for it, would have socked him in the mouth to hear him suggest it. "Don't you two have any respect for women?"

Luke and Cooter stared at him for a moment, as if they didn't recognize him.

"Think he's been out in the sun too long," Cooter said slowly.

"Or been driving too fast with the windows down and wind's gotten to his head," Luke agreed. Bo would have retorted but his attention was drawn away by the honk from Jesse's truck as he finally reached his turn in the car-wash line. He handed over his vehicle to a small pack of teenagers who seemed responsible enough, and tottered over to join the boys in front of the garage.

Balladeer: If I didn't know better, I'd swear Jesse was lookin' like he was takin' sick. But Jesse ain't been sick in nearly twenty years.

"What are you up to?" Jesse asked, half gruff and half teasing.

"Whatever do you mean, Uncle Jesse?" Cooter asked innocently.

The older man narrowed his eyes at them. "Any time the three of you are standing in one place, with a gaggle o'girls running around in another place across the street, there's trouble brewing." Jesse shot Bo a quick look, took in the mildly flushed cheeks, and did a quick calculation. "Henri-Mae helping out?"

"Surprised Shelly talked her into it," Luke said. But just then a sight caught his eye and he pulled himself upright, straightening his shirt and smoothing down his hair. Having caught the signal himself, Bo did a quick once-over and felt his million-dollar smile coming onto his face.

Balladeer: Yeah, that's Bo Duke, Ladies man extraordinaire. Henri-Mae may have gotten under his skin, but after all he hell she'd put him through some months ago, he was pretty much determined to stop killing himself with guilt. Nothing like guilt to ruin a man's social life, anyway.

Gabrielle Stone and her partner, who was pretty much just a name and an F.B.I. badge to them when her sparkling violet-blue eyes and platinum hair were nearby, came around the corner, apparently having a low-key conversation. It stopped, not abruptly as if they'd been caught, but naturally, in a way that only people who worked for government agencies could handle.

"Mr. Cooter Davenport?" Gabrielle asked, fishing in her pocket for her wallet. The other guy, Danny something, already had his badge out and had flicked it briefly for Cooter's appraisal. "Can we ask you a few questions?"

Not having seen the Fed up close yet, Cooter shot Luke a glance that clearly said, "You were right," and tipped his hat to the lady. "That's me, ma'am," he said, "and you can ask me anything you want. Can't promise what the answers will be, though."

Gabrielle turned those strange purplish eyes to Luke and Bo and gave them a nod of acknowledgement.

Balladeer: Yep, you can be sure the boys met this pretty agent up close and personal at their farm just the previous day, and true to Duke form, the boys had flanked her right and proper the second she'd set herself down on their living room couch. This always managed to intimidate the ladies, even if the boys never mean no harm by it. Gabrielle had gone on with her questions and sipped her tea as if the boys weren't there. Such unflappable-ness was sure to just quicken the cousins' interest.

"Well," he said, flipping in a notebook she produced from a coat pocket, "we were talking to Miss Tisdale at the post office, and she reported having spotted you in the area about two weeks ago, on the seventeenth of May, when a particularly nasty incident happened just outside the Hazzard County Bank, run by Mr. Jefferson Davis Hogg?"

"Yes, ma'am," Cooter said, straightening. "I was towing a car out of the public square." He shot Bo and Luke a look. "These are the boys you should be talking to about that, though, ma'am, as they were the ones who got mixed up in that mess – unjustly, I might add."

Gabrielle flicked a shoulder. "Oh, I've already questioned the boys, and I'm sure I'll do it again." She shot them a look that clearly said, I'll bet you're looking forward to it, but went on. "I wanted to get your interpretation of events."

Cooter started talking, but the boys hardly heard it. Cooter had bitched his poor newly-shaved head off for nearly a week after the incident, being the only one in town who hadn't been invited proper to the wedding. Of course, Bo and Luke were quick to point out that they hadn't been invited either, but that was different, Cooter said. The Duke boys and Sheriff Coltrane had never been friends, why would he invite them to his wedding?

Gabrielle, though, listened to the story with interest – which wasn't surprising, as the story had actually been half-interesting the first three or four times Cooter had told it. The cousins, however, were quite interested in looking at her, and did so rather unabashedly, as was their way. This might have made some women uneasy, but just like being flanked on the couch, she went on as if they weren't there.

"I just love it when they play hard to get," Luke murmured to Bo.

Bo didn't answer. He'd been about to, as that was really the sort of thing he would have said, but there was another sight catching his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he turned in time to see Henri-Mae herself coming down the drive, wringing out her hair.

He stiffened. Why did her sudden presence, as he was clearly oogling the pretty Fed, suddenly make him feel as if he'd been caught cheating all over again? Determined, he pushed it away, and shifted his feet, turning his back to her.

If Henri-Mae noticed, she gave no sign. She went right on over to Cooter, not missing a beat. "I'm sorry," she said, "is this a bad time?"

Gabrielle was scribbling something on her notepad. Her partner, who had been observing everything with a rather distant air, suddenly reminded everyone of his existence. "It couldn't ever be a bad time for you," he said, his smooth and gravely voice reminding the boys that yes, indeed, there was another attractive man in the vicinity.

Henri-Mae glanced at him quickly, having already figured out from the wink she'd seen earlier, as well as the few other comment he'd shot her way, that this man was apparently interested in her. Almost against her will, her eyes slid to Bo, but then away again when she saw he wasn't looking back.

"It's okay," Gabrielle said, shooting her a winning smile. "I was just finishing with him." She flipped her pad shut. "Deputy Locke?" she added, a frown brushing her brow. "Did you get caught in a sudden rainstorm?"

Henri-Mae looked down at her soaked clothes. Perhaps she would have been mildly embarrassed, but in the presence of another alpha female, the fact that her clothes were clinging to her rather tightly, showing off her well-shaped feminine form was actually a bonus. "Car wash," she said breezily. "You two bring a car? I know how dirty the roads of Hazzard get, you should get it washed. We're raising money for the orphanage."

"They still have orphanages in this world?" Gabrielle replied, mildly surprised. "I thought that went out with Daddy Warbucks and President Roosevelt."

"In Hazzard, they're a little behind," Henri-Mae said with a smile and a tone in her voice that was a combination of disdain and pride, quite the contradiction. That managed to drag Bo's eyes to her for a second, but he quickly jerked them away.

"Where is the orphanage?" Gabrielle asked. "I'd be curious to see it."

Henri-Mae opened her mouth to reply, but Bo was fast. "Oh, we'd be glad to take y'all on over there," he said with an eagerness that locked her jaw in place. "We can go right now if y'like?"

Gabrielle blinked slowly, glanced at Bo, and then back at Henri-Mae. The awkwardness of the moment was handled easily by Henri-Mae, who squared her shoulders and turned to Cooter. "My bike ready?" she asked.

"Just about," Cooter said. "All that's left is the bill."

Balladeer: Now Cooter don't mean to be mean, but he's been burned by the Sheriff's department enough times to be wary of anyone with a badge coming to his garage.

She patted the back of her shorts, creating a wet slap. "I don't have any cash on me right now," she said, "but I'll come back later, after the car wash, and pay you, okay?"

Cooter shrugged a shoulder. It really wasn't like him to hesitate to let someone have their car, even if they hadn't paid for it yet. "I suppose," he said, "considering you didn't offer to pay me by tearing up some of my unpaid tickets."

"I tried, but Boss wouldn't let me have any," she said dryly, and then winked at him. Cooter chuckled.

"Real cash, huh?" he said.

"Promise," she said, holding up two fingers.

"Come on, it's inside," he said, jerking his head. "Did you need anything else, Agent Stone?" he asked the Fed, as if just remembering she was there.

"If I do, I'll let y'know," Gabrielle said, the local accent having finally got to her.

Farrell stepped forward, up beside Henri-Mae. "You ride a bike?" he asked. "What kind?"

"Some old clunker," Henri-Mae admitted. "It got it in the city, second-hand. Runs pretty well, but it's getting old."

"That much is true," Cooter said as he led them into the garage. "I don't even know how much longer my magic fingers can keep that thing running."

As they disappeared inside, Bo and Luke turned to converge on Gabrielle, but she wasn't paying them the least bit of attention. She was flipping through her notepad, re-reading old notes and biting the end of her pencil.

"Did you want to go see the orphanage?" Luke suggested.

"Yeah, I know a really pretty scenic route," Bo added with a flirtatious smile.

Her eyes drifted up to them, distant. "No thanks," she said. "Think I'll go get the car washed." She turned slowly on her heel, shoving her notepad into her back pocket. "Bye."

"Bye," Bo said, as he and Luke watched her go, a bit left in the dust.