When Love Comes To Town
By: Brenna "Snakelady" Dawkins
A Dukes of Hazzard Fanfic
Part 3
Summary: Daisy gets more then she bargained for when she takes part in a date lotto to help raise money for a charity. Daisy/Rosco
Ratings: R
Disclaimer: Dukes of Hazzard is owned by Gy Waldron, Paul Picard, and Warner Brothers
Rosco went to the bathroom to wash himself off. He was aching by the time he got home and had rushed up to his room, locking the door to take care of matters. He stood there staring into the mirror after having cleaned up and recalled what had brought him to that fevered pitch and smiled. Who would have thought that Daisy actually liked him? At least, that's what he'd hoped from that dynamite kiss. He'd never had the nerve to kiss her that way before. What on Earth had possessed him to do so tonight? Well, whatever it had been, he was glad because she had responded to him beautifully.
He wondered what he'd do if they truly became a couple. He had a bad feeling that neither Duke nor Coltrane family would approve, and worse yet, Hogg. Rosco's smile melted. His brother in-law would have kittens if he and Daisy got together and stayed together.
"Well, th' lil' fat Meadow Muffin'll just have to get over it, is all." The cop muttered to himself. "Mine an' Daisy's bus'ness is our own. An' if th' Duke's give us any guff, well… " Rosco didn't really know what he'd do and knew he was thinking too far ahead, anyway. Who knew if things would go even further after their second date? But he couldn't help but hope. But would she end up disappointing him like the few others he'd had? He didn't want to think that way about sweet Daisy, but he was aware of her own track record with men and it wasn't pretty. She was a Duke, after all.
He went back to his room and got ready for bed. But when he lay down, he couldn't sleep. The house was dark and silent and the window was open letting in a slight, cool breeze that rustled the curtains. A busy mind was never conducive to sleep. Rosco's mind was anything but quiet.
What would he do if he saw her again while he was on the job? What if she asked him for his help whenever Boss worked against the Dukes? He turned back over to his other side, having tried every one of his favorite positions to no avail. He must've lain there for more then an hour before he fell asleep.
A knock on his door woke him up. Groggily, he opened his eyes and tried to focus on the door.
"Yes, Mama?" He said with his voice slurred by sleep.
"Someone to see you at the front door, Rosco."
Rubbing his eyes, he sat up in bed. "Ah'll be right there, thanks, Mama."
Thinking it could be police work, he hurried back into his uniform, putting on his hat and gun belt. Over the years, he'd cut the time it took to get dressed for an emergency to about three minutes, maybe four. And at two in the morning, the only time when someone sought him out was an emergency.
Going on adrenaline now, he hurried to see who was calling on him. In the hall, his heart gave a little leap… maybe it was Daisy? Maybe she really didn't want the evening with him to end. An excited quite snicker escaped him and he picked up the pace.
His grin transformed into a scowl when he saw it was only the Duke boys.
"What the heck are you two doin' here? Don' ya'll have no'in better to do'n annoy me and cost me sleep?" Rosco grumbled crossly.
"Who's costin' who sleep, Rosco? Whaddja do with her, Rosco?" Bo said and Rosco could see the blond haired Duke was very riled.
Rosco blinked. What was he talkin' 'bout? "What'er you talkin' bout?" What did Daisy let on? The kiss? He didn't think she'd lie and say he did things he hadn't done to her. But, what else could it be? Was his hope just another foolish thing? He knew it. He knew he'd blown everything out of proportion. His heart fell with a thud waiting for the hammer to smash it flat.
"You didn' toss her in jail, didja, Rosco?" Bo asked, his face changed in anger. "That's jus' mean, Rosco!"
"Now calm down, Bo, I'm sure Rosco has an explanation."
"Toss who in jail? Daisy?" Rosco was aghast.
"You done it a'fore." Bo growled.
Rosco took an offense to that. "On Boss's orders! Ah'd not do that on mah own!"
"You still haven't answered our question, Rosco." Luke persisted.
"Ah didn' do nuthin' to hurt Daisy!" Rosco continued, feeling disturbed that the boys didn't seem to know the whereabouts of their younger and prettier cousin. "We parted ways at the Boar's Nest a couple a hours ago. She was jus' fine last ah saw her."
The looks on the boys faces suggested otherwise.
"Ah swear it! Didn' she come home?" Rosco asked worried now.
"If she did, why'd we come here?" Luke asked.
Rosco stared at the Duke boys feeling dread clenching his heart. "Daisy didn' call?"
Bo shook his head agitatedly. The sheriff could see the tenseness in the younger of the Duke boys and could see that Luke was there to play run interference, though he was upset as well, but just better at controlling it.
"Rosco, we trusted you to see no harm came to her on that… date. You're supposed to have looked after her and made sure she came to no harm. Why didn'ja do that, Rosco? It ain' hard, none. Ya do it all the time on the job." Bo continued unrelenting. "Why'dja let her down?"
Rosco took his hat from his head and held it with both hands to his chest, nearly wrung the thing to bits from his nervousness.
"Ah-ah-ah'm sorry, Bo… Luke." He hung his head and twisted his hat in his grip and couldn't meet their eyes. He felt horrible. The boys were right. It was his fault. He should have seen Daisy to the car. But he was hurting so badly down there that had been all he could think about so he hurried home and while he was taking care of business, someone was taking care of Daisy. "We're gonna go out to th' Boar's Nest. Was where ah last saw her. Maybe we'll find somethin'." He tried to straighten out his rumpled hat and put it on top his head.
"We're comin' with." Bo said stoutly, arms on hips and he shrugged Luke off physically.
"Figured ya would." Rosco replied rather meekly and grabbed a flashlight from the table beside the door where keys and notes were kept. "Le's go."
"We'll follow in the General." Luke said as the two boys walked behind the anxious sheriff.
Rosco nodded sullenly, worried for Daisy just as much as the boys were, not that they'd know it or even if they did, ever believe it.
They sped over to the bar with Rosco breaking the speed limit by 20 mph and the boys easily keeping up with their finely tuned hemi. They kicked up dirt as they skidded to a rough halt in their usual parking spots. The boys climbed out first with Rosco nearly falling out of the squad car in his hurry.
An angry Bo demanded. "What are we lookin' for?"
"Anything, Bo. Anything that tells us what happened to Daisy." Luke said as calmly as ever. He'd pulled out a flashlight from the General's glove compartment and started swinging the light in an arch on the ground.
Rosco did the same though his flashlight was so large it could double as a bully stick. Bo fretfully shadowed Luke, looking left when his cousin looked right, sometimes even kneeling to peer at something shiny when all it'd ever turn out to be was a bottle cap or a piece of tinfoil from gum.
"This ain't getting' us nowhere!" Cried an exasperated Bo after almost thirty minutes of searching.
Rosco wasn't happy either. "It's a big lot, Bo. Ah think th' Jeep was o'er here."
"Now see, Bo? That there's a clue right there." Luke said trying to cheer his cousin up.
But Bo's returned look was anything but heartened. "What you mean, Luke?"
"Daisy's Jeep ain't here. Means she must've left under her own power an' maybe somethin' happened to her on the way." Luke finished.
"Maybe." Bo muttered and peered at the bushes that seemed to be rustling an awful lot with barely a breeze. "An' maybe she was took."
"Then wouldn' we find th' kidnappers car?" Rosco said, making a point that the lot was empty of cars except for theirs. "Ah'll scout out the bushes, see if annythin' is out of the ordinary."
Bo and Luke turned back to searching the dirt. Rosco's yelp brought them running.
"Rosco! What is it!" Luke asked, flanked by his cousin then ground to a halt just a step behind the sheriff. Rosco's light was shining on a hunkered form and Luke added his own light to illuminate the wretched man that was trying to stand up from a sitting position but without much luck. "Hobie?"
The perpetual drunk wiped his mouth and Luke could see the man had been throwing up in the bushes.
"Hobie, ya dang near scared ten years outta mah hide! You want me to have to put you in the drunk tank? You know yer breakin' bout seven county ordinances, an' iffin ah find any of that," Rosco gestured with the flashlight on the sickly puddle beside the drunk. "on the walls of th' Boar's Nest, you'll get a fine. Now git!"
Hobi waved broadly at the sheriff as if to calm the man down as he steadied himself with the other hand in the dirt.
"Now'z, now'z sh-h-her-r-r-riff." Hobie slurred as he tried to look up at the tall man before him and remain balanced, which proved an effort. "I'z soberin' up a'for ah go home, thought ya'd be plea… pl… happy ah'd've been so law'biden."
"Ah don' see no other car in this here lot, Hobie. How th' hell you plannin' on drivin' home in the first place, ya dipstick?"
Hobie rocked back on his heels unsteadily. "Uh-m-m… losss'it on th' wayz o'er here."
Rosco shook his head. "Hobie…"
"Whaz ya'll doin' back 'ere anneywayz-z-z?" Hobie asked, squinting against the light.
"Lookin'." Was all Rosco'd reveal.
Hobie squinted back at the cop. "Lookin' fer that real hot girlfrien' o' yerz? Tulip?"
Bo blurted, "Her name's Daisy an' she ain't Rosco's girlfriend none! Got that!"
Rosco wisely kept silent.
Hobie laughed and hiccupped. "From what I'zaw, they looked a might bit keen on each other, lip'n locked the way they waz."
Bo and Luke turned their flashlight on Rosco's face who was blushing bright enough red for them to know that for once Hobie wasn't full of horse pokey. Rosco cleared his throat and avoided looking over at the Duke boys, already knowing the looks of anger that they were most likely throwing his way.
"Rosco, what were you thinkin'! You took advantage of Daisy!" Bo shouted and puffed his body up in defensive as he thought about his chances at clocking the sheriff a good one.
Luke wasn't happy looking either. "Rosco, Bo, listen. We can discuss this at another time, right now, findin' Daisy's more important then getting' into a fight."
"Yer right, Luke." Bo growled and grudgingly conceded.
But Bo's look was all Rosco needed to know this wasn't finished for Bo. "Didja see Daisy leave?" Rosco asked Hobie, hoping to quell any potential storm from Bo by getting down to business.
Hobie scratched his head. "Who?"
"Daisy! Our cousin, Daisy!" Bo raised his voice, not necessarily yelling, but close enough. "Didja see her leave!"
"Don' gotta shout, Joe. I ain' deaf." Hobie said crankily.
"My name's Bo Duke, not Joe!" Bo growled thoroughly irritated.
Hobie reached his hand over to shake Bo's hand in greeting. "Well, howdy! Ah'm Hobie!"
Bo looked over to Luke in helpless agitation, obviously not up to humoring an old drunk, no matter how harmless he may be.
"Hobie. The girl?" Luke stepped in. "You remember a girl in the lot alone tonight?"
Hobie thought hard for a moment, Bo thought he heard a spring snap in the man's mind. "Nope."
"Luke…" Bo began but his cousin shushed the irate blonde.
"Hobie, I thought you said you saw Daisy in the lot tonight." Luke said calmly though his own patience with the man was just as frayed as Bo's was.
"Ah did."
"But you just said you didn't!" Bo shot back and was cut short of his forward movement by Luke's arm.
"Ah said ah didn' see her alone."
Luke looked up to the heavens and pleaded to the Lord for some patience. "Hobie…"
"She wuz with some feller." Hobie said finally. "Ya never asked none if she wasn' 'lone."
"This guy?" Bo pointed angrily at Rosco who looked up with a look of surprise on his face at Bo's insinuation.
"Nonono…" Hobie shook his head so hard he almost fell over. "That young Lilent, no, Leslie, no… dang… whozzit that got that young boy that got back from New York? Lyle!"
Rosco blinked. "Lyle Grayner?"
Hobie nodded, then shook his head.
"Hobie, the only other Lyle in town is six years old an' he ain' got no son. An' Mr. Grayner got two daughters." Rosco revealed to the confused man.
"Not Lyle… now ah 'member, Gomer Pyle! Yeah, wuz hiz son."
Bo twitched. "That's a character from a television show, Hobie."
"Ah yeah! Ah do love that there show." Hobie chuckled as if he was remembering a favorite scene.
"This ain' gonna get us no where." Rosco said disheartened by the little information the drunk had given them.
"Iffin' ya wan'er back, ah'd not give up on 'er." Hobie continued stoically. "They done drove off together in that white Jeep."
"'Splain's why her car ain't here." Luke said to Bo unhappily.
"Doesn't 'splain who she was with though." Bo replied back just as glum.
"Ah done tol'ja already!" Hobie said getting a bit irate himself. "Were Kyle Homer that spirited th' young miss away after this feller," he pointed to Rosco, "done left."
"Homer's youn'un?" Rosco gave a start and swore under his breath. "That feller's got a sheet a mile long from bein' in New York."
"What sort of stuff, Rosco?" Bo asked, not liking the tone of Rosco's voice at the mention of the young man.
Rosco fidgeted nervously and cleared his throat. "Les' jus' say he was a bad boy."
Bo nearly charged Rosco at that. "An' ya'll just let that guy loose on the streets o' Hazzard? Why on Earth didn'ja keep a guy like him behind bars! I thought you was supposed to keep the public safe from folks like that!"
Rosco gamely held his ground and puffed his chest up a bit. "Now lookee here, Bo! He already paid for them crimes, an' anyways, they happened in New York, not in Hazzard. Ah can't rightly arrest the man for som'thin' he ain' even done yet."
"Ain't never stop you when it come to us, before." Bo grumbled.
Rosco ignored Bo's disparaging comment and went back to his squad car. He picked up the CB and called for Enos. It took several tries before Rosco realized that Enos was in bed and he only had the Duke boys as his back up. Muttering agitatedly to himself, Rosco moved back to where the three men waited.
"Well… gotta get on home. Good luck to ya." Hobie waved and then before any of them could do anything, was gone.
"At least we know who took her." Luke said sullenly.
Bo looked down the road in the direction the tire tracks had led. "What good is that gonna do to us now? Daisy's in the hands of a monster."
"We don' know that for sure, Bo." Rosco said, though in his cop gut he felt a twinge of fear that made him feel ill. "After all, we got all this from th' ramblings of a man who still calls you Joe. Any of his testimony would fall flat in th' courtroom. If this leads to a dead end…"
"Then we'll just find another way if it does." Luke finished stoutly.
Rosco sighed and nodded resolutely. "Ah'm sorry, boys. Iff'n ah'd only stayed and saw her off then none o' this'd ever've happened. Ah don' want nuthin' bad to happen to Daisy… ah hope ya believe me on that."
Bo glared at the sheriff. "You better've not touched her none!"
"Ah swear… all we done was kissed… an' ah wasn' th' only one kissin', she kissed back! 'Side's, it'd done been her idea."
"I can't believe that, Rosco." Bo shook his head.
"Well, then that be too bad 'cause iff'n ah'd a stack of bibles, then ah'd swear on them too." Rosco said and swept his flashlight down to the dirt where Dixie had been parked. He traced the light along the tracks the tires left. They didn't go back in the direction of the Duke farm like they should have, but in the exact opposite one. "Not much up that way." He shined the light down the road.
"Bunch of old still sites and a couple of foreclosed barns." Luke said dryly, shining his own light after Rosco's. "There ain' enough time. That fellah's already had at least a couple o' hours, maybe close to three alone time with Daisy."
"Then we best get goin' an' look for her, ya think?" Rosco turned about and faced the boys. They nodded and went to their prospective cars and with Rosco in the lead, followed after the direction Daisy had gone.
To Be Continued…