by: Sarah Stodola

At seven o’clock sharp, the first time in months that the Dukes had been exactly on time for anything and not either early or late (usually the latter), Luke, Bo, and Candy came through the door into the driver’s club at the track. There was quite a group of men there, and Luke cast around for a familiar face.

“Hey,” one of the men sitting at the nearest table greeted Candy. “How’s it goin’, kiddo?”

“Hi, Ted, fine,” she answered. “Hi Jerry,” she waved at his drinking buddy.

“Nice to meet you,” Luke pushed his way into the hellos, smiling and holding out his hand. “I’m Luke, and this is Bo, and where’s Frank?”

Ted and Jerry both shook his hand, and then Bo’s. “Heard you’re drivin’ on our team,” blond Jerry commented.

“For a while, yeah,” Bo nodded, grinning.

“Aren’t you a bit young?” red-headed Ted came in next.

The teenager’s eyes narrowed slightly.

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by Sarah Stodola

Originally written 1998-2000. Edited/reposted March 2005

Author’s note (updated): This story is a sequel to my fic “Cousins”. It’s set a couple of years after that one, and is really quite a ride (buckle up, khee-khee! 🙂 ). It took a very long time and much effort to write, so I hope you enjoy it. Many thanks especially go to Margaret, who helped me figure out several times where the story was going to go next, and Rose, who helped me fine-tune it. Both these lovely authors have now left the online Hazzard community, but may blessings follow them wherever they may now be.

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“Hey Bo! Bo Duke!”

Huh? Oh. The blond eighteen-year-old lying on his stomach along a wide, near-horizontal tree branch shut his book and shoved it in a sharp V where two branches grew together, and gripping the branch with his legs and hands, agilely swung himself partly out of the oak tree to hang upside down. He glanced over, and grinned and freed one hand to wave at the lady who’d been calling his name. “Hey Anna.”

Anna Darren shook her head, her fists on her hips. “Where’ve you been?”

“Right here. Why?”

“Luke’s been looking for you.”

“Luke?” He perked up, eyes widening in delight, and gripping the branch firmly with both hands, swung his legs down out of the leaves and finally dropped to the ground. He stood, brushing dirt off himself. “He’s home?!”

The brunette chuckled. “Yep. Got home about half an hour ago, but nobody could find you. I almost started to worry, but he said you were probably fine.” Anna shrugged. “He’d like to see you.”

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by: Sarah Stodola

TWO MONTHS LATER…

“Good mornin’, good mornin’, good mornin’!”

Luke groaned and pulled his pillow over his head. The covers were swept off and away, and the pillow forcibly snatched. Bo bent down, blond hair even more tousled than normal, and grinned.

“Good mornin’!” he repeated. “Get up!” When his older cousin only mumbled something indistinguishable, Bo jumped onto the bed on hands and knees and bounced it. Then he sat back, hands on his hips. “C’mon, Luke,” he complained. “Get up.”

Finally the dark-haired Duke yawned and sat up, blinking. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Too early.” He fell back down on his back. Hah, Bo grinned a bit to himself. Only too early if you’d stayed out late Friday night, like they had. But Bo wasn’t tired, and he had seen the twinkle in his cousin’s eyes that meant he was willing to play. He pounced, tickling the sleepy older boy. Luke yelped and pushed away, falling with a resounding thud onto the floor. He sat up, eyeing Bo.

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by: Sarah Stodola

Luke woke early, having slept peacefully despite his worries of the previous day, and headed straight for a shower, and after that the kitchen. He’d been no cook before, and Bo even less of one, but they’d had to get out that old cookbook and figure it out if they didn’t want to starve, and starving was about the last thing they’d wanted to do. So, both boys, though mostly himself, had learned how to make meals.

He quickly fried strips of bacon, then scrambled some eggs in the leftover grease, and with what was left after that, heated up some of Sunday’s hash browns that had been in the icebox. Spreading the crispy potatoes on the bottoms of two plates, he dumped the eggs on top, laid bacon on top of that, lightly salted the whole mess, and went to go locate his younger cousin.

Bo was easy to find. He was still in bed. Or rather, on the bed. The lightweight covers were rumpled, kicked aside and down, and the blond boy lay half-sprawled on his back at a diagonal across the mattress, with his head a good foot from his pillow. He was sleeping soundly, his breathing deep.

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by: Sarah Stodola

“O-kay, turn ’im left. U-turn right! Back up and spin around to face me. Whoa!”

Luke smiled as Cooter barked the final order and held both hands up as if to stop a running horse. The smile broadened as a blond head poked out of the driver’s side window of the orange racer, quickly and agilely followed by the rest of a slim teenager.

“Okay?” Bo called to him, sitting on the door. Luke gave him a thumbs up from his seat in the shade on top of an old cold box.

“Great! More than okay! You did great!”

The blond boy thrust one fist into the air victoriously. “Yee-haaa!”

Luke grinned again. He was proud of his younger cousin, yet again. He was learning so quickly, doing so well, that the older Duke often forgot he didn’t yet have a license. Which he had to have before the end of August, on his sixteenth birthday. It had been decided that he would drive the summer’s-end race. The younger boy was both nervous and ecstatic at the thought.

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