Author's note: Hi all! Here's Chapter 9, quick before my weekend steals me away to whatever it brings.

Thanks to all who read, and extra thanks to those who review. I very much appreciate the feedback.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Dukes or any of the main characters. Andy does his own thing, but his name belongs to Warner Brothers. And none of them are a source of revenue!

Chapter 9 – Not a Personal Thing

"Dat, dat, dat, now Jesse, Agent Roach caught your boys with the evidence on them. There ain't no way I can set bail for them boys. It's a federal offense. Why, they ain't even in county custody right now. We're just holdin' 'em for the U.S. of A. government until they can come and claim them."

"J. D. I don't care whose prisoners they are, they got a right to counsel, and until further notice, that's me."

"You ain't no lawyer." It wasn't what Boss had said, but how he'd said it, that made Jesse consider revisiting their youth and planting his fist in the face of the man who'd once been his friend. It had already been a trying enough night, and now that all the parties were finally back at the county building, he and J. D. had been squaring off for half an hour, while Jesse's kids were locked up downstairs.

The Duke patriarch managed to keep his fists in check, though later, he was never sure exactly how he'd done it. "I don't have to have no diploma to talk to them. The law says they have a right to counsel, and that's what I aim to give them. You ain't gave them their phone call yet, have you? How are they supposed to get counsel if they can't have me and they can't call no lawyer?"

"Jesse's right there, Boss. The law definitely states that they have a right to counsel." Catching the look in his brother-in-law's eye, Rosco quickly added, "Gyu," then shut up.

"They might have a right to counsel, but not at one AM in the mornin'. This building is closed. You can just come back during visitin' hours."

"J. D…."

Daisy had taken advantage of the battle raging in Boss's office to go and locate Andy. She wasn't sure what she was going to say to him, but it was certainly going to be loud and include some words Uncle Jesse would not approve of her using. A little of the fight went out of the young woman when she remembered that her uncle wouldn't have approved of any of this, but she swallowed that thought back and continued to hunt the man down.

She found him with Enos and Doc Petticord in the squad room. This was not the time to lash out at him, so she stayed back in the shadows for now, listening.

"All right, but just for tonight. After that I want them separated, though they can be side-by-side. They're smart, and I don't want them trying anything." That was Andy.

Doc Petticord said his goodnights and headed out the door. Enos also excused himself, walking towards the commissioner's office. There was quite a ruckus going on in there, and it was very likely that the sheriff needed his assistance.

Agent Roach sat down behind one of the desks in the squad room and let his head fall into his hands. Now that the adrenaline had stopped pumping through his system, he was left exhausted and slightly remorseful. He hadn't meant to be so rough with the Duke boys, but they'd shown themselves to be good fighters and he was afraid of what might have happened if he'd let them get the upper hand. When he'd first arrived at the scene he hadn't been sure whether Bo Duke was really hurt or whether it was part of some plan designed to play on his sympathies and allow the two to escape. Now that he knew the blonde had really been injured, he wished he'd been a little more reasonable with Luke as the arrest had unfolded.

"What exactly were you thinkin', Andy Roach? Did you think maybe telling me you loved me would get me to help you catch my cousins? Is that what you thought?"

Daisy. Andy hadn't forgotten about her, but he also hadn't expected to see her just yet. He'd wanted more time to figure out what to say to her.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry. It's not a personal thing…"

"Don't you call me sweetheart!" After that quick outburst, Daisy made a conscious effort to lower her voice to a reasonable level. She didn't need to bring the crowd that was in the commissioner's office out here. "Don't you call me anything, Andy Roach."

Andy held up his hands to show he meant no harm. "I'm sorry. It's just… this is my job Daisy, the reason I am in Hazzard in the first place. If I catch them, I have to arrest them."

"If you catch them. But you didn't just happen to catch them, did you? You been watchin' them, ain't you." It wasn't a question.

Agent Roach didn't know how to handle this one. On the street, or in tonight's case, in the woods, he knew what he was supposed to do, and how to make others do what he wanted them to. When it came to dealing with people he couldn't slap cuffs on, sometimes he was out of his element. In this case, he found he could only tell the truth.

"Yeah, I have been."

"You used takin' me home as an excuse to get near the farm, didn't you?"

"I did," Andy admitted, "but I never learned anything then, Daisy. And I never learned anything from you either. I never asked you about them, and you didn't tell me anything useful. What happened with me and you didn't have anything to do with me catching them." Andy consciously neglected to tell her that he'd first seen the boys making a run while bringing her home. He wanted to be very honest, but saw no reason to be deliberately hurtful. If he had his way, Daisy'd go to her grave never knowing that their time together had anything to do with tonight's bust.

Instead of making her feel better, this information from Andy caused Daisy greater pain. She was losing her anger quickly, and without that emotion, she was only left with guilt and sadness.

"Andy, you seen who we are. You know we ain't got no other livin' to make. You know we ain't bad people. How could you do this to me, to all of us?"

Andy wanted nothing more than to take the crying woman into his arms, but he knew it was no longer his right to do so. Instead he made what was probably the hardest admission he'd ever make, "You're good people Daisy, and you don't deserve to lose your livelihood this way. But it's against the law and it's my job to enforce that law. And," this was even harder to say, but he wanted to be completely truthful with the woman that he genuinely cared about, "I like my job Daisy. I really do. Chasing your cousins was exciting. They are the best drivers I have even seen. I'm sorry that doing my job hurt you and your family, but I can't be sorry I caught them. Do you understand that?"

Daisy's friend, anger, was back. "All I understand is that my cousins are going to prison, probably for five years, and that my uncle in there is too old to have to find a new trade now. And we've all lost so much family, we can't afford to lose any more, even if it is just five years and not forever. So I'm glad you had your fun, but I just can't stand to look at you no more."

With those words, the first woman Andy Roach had ever loved stormed out of the squad room and back to what was left of her family.

When Daisy got back to Boss's office, the war in there was still underway. Jesse's face was a scary shade of purple, Rosco's hat was in his hands, Enos was staring at his own feet, and J. D. Hogg was looking awfully smug.

"My budget is already stretched to the limit, Jesse Duke. I can't afford to keep this building open all night. Why, just think of all the costs: electricity, maintenance, paper goods…"

"Paper goods? What are you talkin' about J. D.? I ain't gonna use no paper. I'm just counseling my boys, which they have a right to."

"And we have to add your little visit to the report, which means more paper. Not to mention manpower."

"'Scuse me Mr. Hogg?" Enos was terrified of what he was about to do, but he was even more afraid that Jesse Duke would have a heart attack right there on the spot. "I have to stay here anyway, in case Bo Duke needs a doctor in the night. So there's no extra manpower."

"Hogg," everyone turned at the unexpected voice, coming from the door to the office. "Are you denying those boys their right to counsel?" Agent Andy Roach asked. "You just let their uncle counsel them, and right now. This is my case, and I won't have it thrown out of court because you refused to grant the suspects their rights."

As much as he hated to swallow his pride, Boss Hogg was given no choice. "All right, all right. You have exactly one hour, Jesse Duke."

Before heading downstairs to talk to the boys, Jesse had instructed Daisy to have Cooter take her home. When he was done with the boys, he'd take a loaner car from the mechanic and meet her at the farm. All of his kids had been through an awful lotover the course of thenight, and he wanted at least one of them to have a good night's rest. The next few days were likely to require that everyone be on their toes, which would only be possible if they got some sleep.

Daisy found Cooter sitting on the steps to the county building. Normally he would have been inside fighting for Bo and Luke alongside everyone else, but he'd been barred entry by the revenuer. By the time Daisy came out to find him, the mechanic was worried about his friends, but even more than that he was furious at Andy Roach. No sooner had he and Daisy gotten into the tow truck than he let loose with a string of choice words about the man.

"Cooter, stop that, please," Daisy begged.

Shocked, the young man said, "What's with you, Daisy? He, Boss and Rosco just railroaded Bo and Luke! Why ain't you mad?"

"I am, Cooter. Just, the person I'm mad at is me."

"Now, girl, I saw your car. You couldn'ta done a better job of trying to save them. You ain't got no reason to be angry at yourself," Cooter reasoned. He was really starting to get worried about her. She was very upset and things were only going to get worse from here, when the boys were tried and convicted. With evidence like that ATF agent had, they'd be sent away for years, and Daisy would be minus her two cousins. If there was anything Cooter could do to take away his friend's pain that night, he was going to do it.

"Oh, it ain't that… If I tell you somethin' can you keep it from Uncle Jesse and the boys?"

"If you want me to, Daisy. But there ain't nothing you can't tell them."

"Yes, there is. Up until tonight, I was spending an awful lot of time with Andy Roach."

"Time together… like dating him?"

"Yeah, Cooter. And it was starting to get serious, at least I think it was." Daisy realized that she didn't know much of anything for sure anymore.

"But you knew he was a revenuer!"

"Yeah, I knew, but we didn't talk about that. An' we didn't talk about moonshinin' either. We mostly just talked about us. Cooter, I swear, I didn't tell him nothin' that would get the boys busted!"

"Oh, sweetheart, I knew that." As unnerved as he was by Daisy's confession, Cooter never doubted that whatever had transpired between the revenuer and the moonshiner's niece, it hadn't consisted of them conspiring to harm her cousins or the family in any way. "I won't tell Uncle Jesse or the boys, but honey, I think you should. Otherwise it'll just keep eatin' at you, and that wouldn't be good. Your family's going to need all the help you can give them now and you won't be of much use, sittin' there feelin' guilty."

Daisy looked at her hands and whispered, "They'd never forgive me."

"I don't think that's true. You didn't have nothing to do with them gettin' caught. An' it ain't like you was datin' me. Now that they'd have to disown you for." Cooter was rewarded with a small smile and a warm hug.

"Boys," Jesse called tentatively, "you all right?"

In response, Luke gave him a sheepish half-smile, and Bo blurted out, "I'm sorry, Uncle Jesse."

Jesse pulled an old chair up to the outside of the cell, and the boys both came to the bars and squatted in front of him. Jesse reached in to take Bo's face in his hands.

"What are ya sorry for, Bo?"

"For gettin' caught. Maybe you shouldn'ta let me drive after all."

"Now, Bo, there was four cars after you, did you know that? I ain't never tried to outrun four cars, and neither has Luke here. But if we had, I can tell you, we wouldn'ta kept 'em going as long as you did. You did great, boy."

"But, Jesse, what are we gonna do? You can't keep the business up without at least one of us to help you, and now we're both goin' away…" Jesse pulled the boy as close as he could, while Luke also put an arm around his younger cousin's shoulders. Running his hands soothingly through blonde hair, Jesse looked at his older nephew. Luke seemed to be holding up fine. There were moments when he appreciated that boy's control. It might make him hard to deal with sometimes, but it also provided a lot of strength for the younger members of the family. Convinced that Luke would be all right, Jesse returned his attentions to Bo.

"Now Bo, you can't be thinkin' that way. They're gonna have to set bail, and I'll get you out. And then we'll come up with somethin' for the trial. You can't give up," Jesse consoled.

"Yes sir," Bo answered, without conviction.

"In the meantime, don't you go admittin' to nothin', you understand me?" Jesse was getting back on his game. He didn't mind easing Bo's hurt, but he wanted the boys to be tough. If Bo was feeling this bad, there was no telling what he might confess to. Not only that, Jesse could see each of the boys admitting to being the mastermind so that the other one could get off. The only place that would lead was a longer sentence for them both. No, he had to toughen them up right now. "You don't talk at all, unless you got a lawyer present. An' we'll get you one."

"Yes sir."

"Jesse? You said there was four cars after us?" That was Luke, always thinking. "Roach, Enos and who else?"

"Well, Rosco was behind me, and then Daisy ran into J. D. Hogg," Bo actually snickered at the image of his petite cousin running into the portly man. The sound of his laughter warmed his cousin's heart.

"So Boss was in on it," Luke said, meeting his uncle's eye.

"J. D. was in on it," Jesse said thoughtfully.

"Seems to me you and Daisy got some work to do," Luke suggested. He and Bo exchanged grins.

The old man nodded. "We'll do it boys, but remember, this is a federal charge. Whether Daisy and me get what we need or not, Roach may not drop the charges against you."

"Well, then we'll see Boss in the federal pen," Bo said, and all three Duke men laughed.

Jesse Duke headed home, knowing that whatever happened, his nephews would find a way to get through it. They were good, strong boys, and he was only sorry that the family business could be responsible for their incarceration. If there was another way to earn a living in these parts, Jesse would quit 'shine making in a second, just to have Bo and Luke safe and back under his roof.