Alright, Chapter 3! Woo-hoo! Once again, thanks for all the reviews! I love reading all your comments, so keep it up! Feed the Muse! lol

Disclaimer: I (unfortunately) don't own the Dukes of Hazzard. Anna/Annabelle is indeed my own original character.


Sitting around the table at the Boars Nest, Luke couldn't help but keep stealing glances at the girl mechanic sitting beside him. She and Daisy were getting to know each other, Cooter was talking with Enos about some improvements he wanted done to his patrol car, and Bo had left them, distracted by one Emily Puckett in a short skirt. When Daisy left to refill beers, Luke and Anna were left alone at the table with nothing but a couple of half-empty beer glasses and a bowl of popcorn.

"So Anna," Luke started, "I was wonderin', how did you end up in Hazzard?"

She chuckled under her breath and looked up at him and smiled. "It's a long story."

"Well, we got all night." he smiled, blue eyes twinkling.

"Alright then, just remember, you asked." Anna pointed a finger at him and took a sip of her beer. "I guess it all started back in Texas."

Luke grabbed a handful of popcorn and shook it around in his big hand. "Texas? What's in Texas?" He asked and then popped his handful of popcorn in his mouth.

"I moved to Texas when I was 13 to live with my aunt and uncle." She explained. "They owned a big cattle ranch down there. They had over 3000 head of cattle. My parents thought it would be a good idea to send me down there for the summer. Figured that living on the ranch would straighten me out some."

"Straighten you out some?" Luke looked at her questioningly.

"Yeah, I was kind of a hell raiser. Being cooped up in downtown Dallas just wasn't really my style I guess you can say."

"I don't blame ya none." he commented with a smile.

Anna smiled back, adjusting the cap on her head. "Yeah, so I went to live with my aunt and uncle down in the middle of cattle country and I fell in love with it. When fall rolled around I never went home. My Uncle Norm taught me how to rope and ride a horse. He took me with him out riding circles in the pastures, treating sick cattle, branding calves, it was the ultimate." She looked lost in the memories, her brown eyes dull, focused on some far off ranch in Texas. "Then Aunt Lilly got me hooked on barrel racing and rodeo. We had to have put a trillion miles on that old Ford and stock trailer traveling around to rodeos all over the west." She let out a deep breath and looked at Luke, as if she wasn't sure how to continue. "I wish it never had to end, but I guess that's what happens to all good things."

"What happened?" Luke asked. He didn't like that sad look that was suddenly on her face.

"When I was 19, Aunt Lil and Uncle Norm died in a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains. They were on their way back from the Denver Stock Show buying bulls." Luke saw her struggling to keep it all together. He reached out one of his big hands to envelop one of her small ones. She smiled up at him and continued. "When they passed, and the will was read, turns out that they had left the land and money to me and all the cattle, except for my own little heard, and all the other assets to the cow boss, Jamie Southwell. Jamie and I made a deal that we would run the ranch collectively as a partnership. But when it came time to sell the calves, Jamie went and marketed them behind my back and pocketed the money. So I broke off the partnership and sorted off my cattle and Jamie loaded up and left. Now Aunt Lil and Uncle Norm weren't broke, but they sure didn't have enough money to keep the place going without that calf money. So I was forced to sell out." She looked back up from the old, scuffed table to Luke's face. "That was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I tried to take out loans, but no bank would back a 19 year old with nothing but some desert cattle land for collateral."

"So what did you do?" Luke asked quietly, still holding her hand in his.

She let out another deep breath and looked across the bar at the back wall. "I left Texas in that old Ford and a stock trailer with my barrel horse Bandit. I'd enter rodeos and jackpots on the weekends, trying to win some food and gas money. I wound up selling a share in Bandit to an old rodeo friend in New Mexico. She kept him and ran him in rodeos around there, giving me a chunk of all the prize money she won on him. I headed north to Colorado, I knew a guy up there who used to ride bulls. I worked my way up there, and then worked my way east to Tennessee. That's pretty much how I wound up here in Hazzard. I'm workin my way south to Louisiana to see a cousin."

"So what about after that?"

"I don't know." she shrugged, taking another sip of beer, "Probably think of some long-lost friend or relative that lives half way across the country and make my way there to see them. That's what I've been doing for the past three years, seems to have worked for me."

Luke sat there quiet for a few minutes, absorbing all that he had just been told. "Well where did you learn all you do about mechanics? I mean, roping a steer and twisting a wrench are two pretty different things."

"One of the guys that worked for my uncle, Larry Goodvin, he was always tinkering around with the tractor and his pick-up. I asked him to teach me, and he did." She chuckled under her breath at another memory. "We rebuilt this '42 Chevy truck one time. We got the body off of one of his brothers out on the gulf coast, it was all rusted out and really rugged. But we got her all patched up and we dropped in an engine out of an old stock car we found in Austin. Man did that thing bark." She shook her head at the memory. "Anything else you wanna know?"

Luke just shook his head, "No, wow," he stammered, "You have had a pretty rough go." she shrugged her shoulders, taking her hand back from him and looked back at him, brown eyes beginning to sparkle in the present again.

"Nothin' I can't handle." she winked, taking another swig of brew. "So what about you plowboy," she changed the subject, "What's your story?"

It was Luke's turn now to spin his beer mug in his hands. "Well, my parents ran moonshine with my Uncle Jesse. When I was 4, them, Bo and Daisy's parents all died in a car crash."

"Oh man." Anna muttered, shaking her head slightly. "Sounds like I ain't the only one that had a rough go of it."

Luke smirked at her and shook his head. "I didn't have too rough a go. Uncle Jesse and Aunt Lavinia took us under their wings. Raised us like their own kids." He rested an elbow on the table and rubbed his jaw. "Then nothing real exciting happened 'til I turned 18 and I got drafted to the Marines. Had to leave Hazzard and spend two years on a tour of duty in Vietnam. That wasn't very fun."

"Being in Vietnam or leaving Hazzard?" Anna asked, leaning her head on her fist, looking at him, her hat sitting crookedly on her head.

"Both. It killed me to leave Hazzard and 'Nam felt like hell." He reached out and straightened Anna's hat on her head. She closed her eyes and giggled.

"Thanks." Crooked little smile finding its way on her lips as she shifted to sit upright in her chair again. "So, you obviously didn't get hurt too bad over there, anything happen when you got back home?"

"Well, Bo had just graduated from high school and the two of us started runnin' Uncle Jesse's moonshine full-time. Some of the best days of my life spent back in them hills runnin' from Revenuers. But that didn't last too long, we got caught on a run and almost went to jail."

"How'd ya get caught?"

"Bo and me was on a run to Choctaw when this revenuer came right out of nowhere. He was hot on our tail and Bo was turnin' him every which way but loose. Then the dang fool started shootin' at us. He managed to shoot out one of our tires and we came skidding to a stop. We took off runnin' hoping that he wouldn't be able to keep up with us, which he didn't, but he took the shine out of the car and seeing who we were, he just met us at home with a couple sets of handcuffs. I gotta say, not one of my brightest moments." Luke shook his head at the memory.

"So why didn't you go to jail? He had the evidence to put you away, why didn't he?"

Luke smirked at that one, "Well Uncle Jesse has a way with words, and managed to talk the State into giving us probation on the condition that we never make moonshine ever again."

"Huh." Anna nodded her head approvingly, "That's good."

"You bet, a whole lot better than 10 years in federal prison." he took another sip of his beer and looked at her. "Anything else you wanna know?" he asked smiling.

"Yeah, one more thing." She said smiling, "Where did you and your cousin get that hot car?"

Luke smiled, "Oh, me and Bo built the General after we got caught runnin' shine. Since the government took away our main source of income, we took up racing."

"Well that makes sense." she nodded smiling. She looked at his intertwined fingers on the table in front of him. "Well now that we know each other a little better Mr. Duke," she said reaching out to grab one of his big hands with one of her smaller ones, "How about you ask me to dance?"

"She dances too!" Luke exclaimed, getting out of his chair and pulling her along, "Wanna dance?" He asked, wrapping an arm around her.

"Absolutely!" she smiled back and walked to the dance floor with him.

Half way through an Oak Ridge Boys song, Boss Hogg and Rosco P. Coltrane came bumbling out of Boss's office. Luke rolled his eyes at the duo and pushed them out of his mind and focused again on the little girl in his arms, laughing and singing along to the song on the jukebox. He was just getting back into the rhythm of the fast-paced Texas two-step Anna set when they almost danced right into a smug looking Boss and Rosco. Luke let out a big huff of air and looked at Anna apologetically.

"Hey Boss, Rosco. Didn't know y'all danced."

"Well of course we don't dance! Boss here can't dance worth a bucket of spit!" Rosco exclaimed, followed by Boss waiving him off.

"Rosco, if you were in a dancing competition with yourself, you'd come in second." Boss spit at his sheriff.

Luke shook his head and sighed. "What do you want Boss?"

"Oh nothing Luke, no, me and Rosco here just noticed this pretty little thing here on your arm that we've never seen in these parts before." Luke felt his jaw tighten and his teeth clench, pulling Anna closer to him. "What's your name sweetheart?"

"Anna Berkley. And you are?" Anna asked, raising her eyebrows

"Well I'm J.D. Hogg, and this here is Sheriff Rosco Coltrane." Boss answered in a sickly sweet voice that made Luke sick to his stomach. "Now I hope you enjoy your stay in Hazzard County." Smiling and looking just a little too glee, Boss and Rosco retreated back to Boss's office.

"What was that about?" Anna asked when the office door closed.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, it can't be good."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, Boss Hogg's crookeder than a prairie dog's hind leg and us Duke's have a habit of fouling up his plans. So ever since Bo and me got probation, he's been trying to set us up with a federal rap and send us to jail." Looking back at the office door, Luke frowned. "He hasn't tried to frame us for a whole three days and I'm starting to get kind of suspicious of the whole shooting match."

Anna nodded slowly, looking around. "Nice guy."

"I can think of a few other more appropriate adjectives." Luke sneered.

Anna spun around in Luke's arms to face him again. Wrapping her arms around his neck she leaned in close. "Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?"

Luke laughed and picked up right where they had left off on the right step of a two-step.