When Love Comes To Town

By: Brenna "Snakelady" Dawkins

A Dukes of Hazzard Fanfic

Part 4

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

Daisy rubbed her wrists as best as she could while being cuffed to a weight bearing post in a house that looked quite ready to collapse in on itself. She sat with her legs folded underneath her on a dirt floor and enough moonlight penetrated through the grime-covered windows to let her know there was no furniture in the tiny one room house. The water dripped from her hair still and soaked through her top from when she'd been awakened from her unexpected slumber with an even more unexpected dishpan full of cold water to the face. She scooted to the other side of the post where she wouldn't be sitting in the mud from the slosh of water even knowing it was useless because she was already filthy.

Her shoes were missing as well as her shorts. She was thankful that she at least had her panties and top on. She had yet to see or hear the water bearer and was too afraid to call out against the darkness in her defenseless state.

"I been waiting for my time with ya, as was rightfully mine."

Her head whipped around at the masculine sounding voice that sounded in the darkness. She saw a dark shape crouching too close for her comfort.

"Yo-you… you were at the Boar's Nest." Daisy put it together at last despite how the fear muddled her mind. "You heard Boss call out the right number first. Please, what are you doing?"

"You're my date!" He growled at her. "Saw you pawin' that dumb ole cop! You rightfully belong to me!"

Daisy scooted around back to the muddy side, opposite of where her captor squatted. "I don' belong to no one! It was all for charity anyways…"

"So you sayin' you kissed th' cop outta charity?"

"None of your business why I kissed him!" Daisy said a bit angry at his tenacity.

She tensed when she felt an iron grip around her wrist. "Is my business, girly. YOU'RE my business. See… I don't take bein' dumped kindly."

"I didn' dump you… you were never even on my radar." Daisy swallowed hard against the pain.

"You's toyin' with my affections now!" He gripped her wrist harder and pulled up sharply so that she felt it in her shoulder and she cried out. "You sayin' I don' deserve someone like you?"

"No… I'm not sayin' that at all, you have to believe me!" She guttered through a sob of pain.

"What you is sayin' then!"

Daisy took a couple of deep breaths to calm her pounding heart. Good Lord, what's he capable of? She thought to herself fearfully. "I'm sayin' please… let me go."

"After I went through all the trouble of bringing you here?" He raged and grabbed a handful of her dark brown hair and pulled down so hard that her chin was forced up. She grimaced in the pain of it. "I aim to get my money's worth from you, and more for all the… emotional strife you put me through tonight!"

"Please… don't…" Daisy whimpered helplessly and wished she hadn't turned around, because at least she could then use her feet against her captor.

He snorted. "You know… when they beg like that? It really pisses me off!"

She didn't bother to say to him that he was already pissed off. Now was not the time to have a smart mouth. She had to think her way out of this one, after all, she was a Duke and a Duke was as good of getting out of trouble as getting into it in the first place.

"Wait… if this is to be a date… what about dinner? And flowers?" She blurted the first plan to come to mind. Stalling until help arrived or until she could figure a way to escape herself, if anyone even knew she was missing in the first place, that is. Besides, if he had dinner with her and she played the nice date, maybe he wouldn't be so angry at her and who knows, in the end maybe even let her go? It was a slim hope, but it was all she had at the moment.

She could hear his quite breathing and she was afraid of having to come up with another plan fast when he released her hair and said, "Okay. That's more like it! Got a fried chicken bucket in my car. Kinda cold now… 'course, it'd been nice 'n hot afore you went out with that blasted cop." His anger crept back into his voice.

Heart pounding, Daisy nodded. "Cold fried chicken is just fine! You go on an' get it an' I'll wait right here, sugah." She said, trying to temper his anger with encouraging words. Trying to soothe the enraged bull, for that's what he was, she realized. A brute who took what he wanted and wasn't used to being told he couldn't have something.

To her relief, he stood and she heard him stroll out the door. Trembling, she tried pulling her hands from the confines of the cuffs, but they bit down on her tightly. Her hands felt along the base of the post and could not find any way to slip the cuffs out from under. Using the post as an aide, she scooted up it to stand, her arms reached up as high as she could manage and her fingers quested the top part of the post. She didn't find the top and realized it was most likely planted firmly into the ground and supported the ceiling. She heard the car door slam shut and realized he might not like her in that position and quickly slid back down to sit in the mud. This time, though, she faced the single door that led outside. She could kick like Maudeen the mule if she had to.

"Well, damn." Rosco muttered as their latest search proved fruitless. He knew he had to try to remain as impartial as he could to perform his duties as sheriff, but it was hard to do so when Daisy was the one in trouble.

"We should split up, that'd make the search go quicker." Bo suggested, feeling as antsy as Rosco was.

Rosco didn't know if he wholly liked that idea or not. "Ya'll ain't deputized or nuthin'… if'n anythin' comes to head an' I'm not there…" he didn't want to finish because he didn't want to think about it.

Luke saw Bo about to burst and put his hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Rosco, we's just gonna scout, an' believe me, in the Marines, I know all about scoutin'. We promise we wont do nuthin' until you arrive unless'n Daisy is in immediate danger… 'coursesun' you gonna need backup or somethin', an' that's really why you don' want us to split."

"I don' need no backup from no Duke!" Rosco growled mostly out of habit.

"Well, you ain't got much of a choice seein' how you can't raise up Enos." Luke said hoping to put out the fuse that looked to be ready to ignite. Only problem was, there were two fuses, Bo's and Rosco's and he didn't relish being the one that got to be between them when they did go off.

"We gonna fuss or find Daisy?" Bo gestured with his arm to the great wide world beyond them. Daisy with Rosco was one thing, but… Daisy in the hands of who they suspected was quite another. If he had to choose between them, he'd choose her to be with Rosco, though the very idea sat rotten in his craw. "We're waistin' time arguin' here!"

Rosco sighed and with his flashlight took one last scan of the area. "Fine, we split up an' search. But you boys are gonna keep in constant radio contact with me, else ah use the both of ya as Flash's new chew toy." He threatened.

Luke recognized that glint in Rosco's eye and knew that when the man was on a mission separate from Boss and when he put his mind to it, he was rather competent.

"Let's do it then." Luke ushered his irate cousin over to the General and threw a look over his shoulder to Rosco. "We still gonna stay on the police channel?"

"Yeah, that way, iff'n Enos overhears, he can come and help… lotta good he does even then…" The sheriff muttered to himself over the ineptitude of his deputy and hurried to his patrol car. "Ah'm goin' to Lowman's Bush, ya'll go 'n check out ole Hep's place."

"10-4, Rosco." Luke nodded in ascent and decided it was better to let the man lead and not argue. The place was near ready to fall in under its own weight. It'd been abandoned when Roosevelt was in office. Jesse and even Boss Hogg had both checked out the place as a possible still site at one time or another and both had discarded the idea.

"Hep's place?" Bo bemoaned as they both slid in through the windows of the orange stockcar. "You gotta be kiddin'! 'Side's he could be steerin' us way off course! For all we know he got her in jail an' is stallin' us or somethin'!"

The powerful hemi revved up and Bo backed the car up, then followed Rosco out the only entrance.

"I don' know, Bo." Luke said thoughtfully as he mused the situation over. "Rosco ain't that good an actor. He's as nervous as a jackrabbit out of concern for Daisy's safety."

Bo snorted as they peeled off to the left on the main road after Rosco peeled off to the right. "Wouldn't put it past Rosco to send us off into a trap with his back turned, that way he got an alibi and get to keep his hands clean."

Luke shook his head. "Only Boss could come up with a scheme like that and this don' smell like Boss none to me."

Bo glanced over at his dark haired cousin. "Jeeze, Luke, almost sounds like yer defendin' Rosco." The displeasure in his observation was all too apparent.

Luke shrugged. "I'm jus' tryin' to see it with both eyes open, iss'all."

Bo snorted and gripped the wheel feeling the tension and unable to do anything about it. "An' iff'n I'm right?"

"We do the usual." Luke said calmly.

Bo didn't say what they'd do if he was wrong. He knew the important thing really was to find Daisy so he clamped his mouth shut and drove like a madman to Hep's, with no fear of hearing sirens blaring behind them for once.

"What if that ain't the place neither, Luke?" He finally voiced his main worry with his brow furrowed after several minutes of strained silence.

"There'er two other places we can check down this area."

"Iff'n she ain' at neither place?"

Luke glanced at Bo, equally nervous.

"I really don' know, Bo. But I know one thing, I'm not gonna stop searchin' for her until we find her, even iff'n we gotta go all night long."

Bo nodded. "Right along with ya, cuz."

Luke didn't voice it, but he had a strong suspicion that Rosco would do the very same. He wasn't sure if Bo would appreciate it or not.

It wasn't long after that Bo slowed as they came up to the drive that led to Hep's. He radioed Rosco to let them know they came up on it and were approaching as quietly as they could. Cautiously, Bo turned into the drive and turned off their headlights, just like they did at the last three places. The General crept along and Bo pulled up to a stop several feet before they hit the wide open parking area that had once been made for horse and buggies. Instead of a horse and buggy though was an all too familiar looking white Jeep sitting there.

Picking up the CB nervously, Bo, in a quieted whisper spoke into it, and wished he'd parked a little further up the road. He hoped that whoever was inside wouldn't hear the noise of their broadcast.

"Rosco!" He hissed in a whisper. "Rosco! We found 'em!"

"Hoppin' hornytoads, Bo, yer sure?"

"SH-h-h-h!" Bo shushed him. "Dang it, I don' know whether or not we're bein' heard! Get over here… come in quiet-like!"

"Don' you tell me none to shush!" Rosco challenged back, but in a quieter tone of voice, not that it masked his temper any. "Ah'm'a comin', ah'm a comin', so's don' ya'll get it in your heads to do nothin' stupid! Stay put! That's an order!"

"We ain' under your command, Rosco." Bo whispered perturbed.

Luke grabbed the mike from Bo before another fight ensued. "We'll be here, just get here quick, 'kay?"

"Kay. Rosco, over 'n out."

"Luke!" Bo's whisper was angry and was a bit louder then he'd intended.

Luke pointed at the ramshackle old building. "I said we'd be here. Didn' mention that 'here' was in the General, did I?"

Bo grinned devilishly as he caught on and was impressed. "You are such a con, cuz."

Luke grinned back and they both stared at the building for a few moments more.

"You ready, Bo?"

"No."

"Neither am I."

"So's, let's go then."

To Be Continued…