by Sarah Stodola

Originally written 1998. Edited/reposted March 2005 

Author’s note (updated):

It is not normally my style to write an extended intro to a story of mine, but I feel I should, for some reason, to this one. This novel, I suppose I should call it, has been a work of much love on my part, an attempt to see inside people that I feel I know as well as I could know anyone, and show what I see to others.

“Cousins”, though an alternate-universe adventure story where most of the events center around the creation and racing of the General Lee, is also a journey through the hearts and souls of two boys that we all know and love. Events and even people are slightly different in some, more outside, ways, but I have tried to capture the essence of who they are, deep down. I hope I have succeeded. Enjoy, and any and all comments/reviews are greatly appreciated.

Many thanks to all my friends and fellow authors from the Crossroads who so quickly accepted me when I first began to write so many years ago, and originally cheered the creation of this story on. I am very grateful to be back in Hazzard again now, and especially to find so many of my friends remaining at HazzardNet.

And I can’t think of anyone better I could ever dedicate this work to than Daisy, without whom I would never have understood or loved her cousins as much as I do. (If you wish to understand this comment, read “A Christmas Tale.”)

Sarah C. Stodola

dixie_dream1n@yahoo.com

*****************

“Hey! Where’d you go?”

The young voice broke the stillness of the woods in playful complaint. Moments later, a young teenager trotted out of the trees into a tiny clearing. He paused and looked around, head high in an almost instinctive pride and dark blue eyes shining with laughter. He brushed his overly-long blond hair out of his face as he looked around.

“Kris! No fair! You’re supposed to stay in sight!”

In response, another boy, this one small and dark-haired, dropped down out of a tree and started running with a red flag clutched in his fist. The blond spotted him and took off like a shot, shouting to any teammates that remained for support.

The kids at Rialton Boarding Home, a cross between a boarding school and an orphanage, a place for kids whose parents couldn’t take care of them to stay, were playing Capture-The-Flag. It was a hard, quick, rough game, and most of the girls participating had dropped out some time ago, captured on purpose so as to be able to quit. The game was drawing to its close, and there were only five players left, two boys and a girl on the Red team, and two boys, one of whom was the young blond, on the Blue team.

This boy had been driving everyone up the wall trying to figure him out since he had first come here three years ago as a small, scared twelve-year-old whose only living relative, his older cousin, had just been drafted into military service. He had gotten over the shyness and was now very outspoken, and had grown a lot, but still no one knew anything more about his past than his name — Beauregard Duke. The only other thing anyone really knew was that he spoke of his cousin all the time, his eyes shining when he did, and that he always wore a small redwood piece on a leather strip around his neck, an oval with delicately carved designs on it.

He was running through the woods now like he’d been born to it, his slim build making him agile and fast. He laughed as he leaped over a log and snatched the flag away from the boy he called Kris, then lit out in the other direction as fast as he could. He didn’t even hesitate when he came to his chosen shortcut, a pond, just dove right in and disappeared underneath. He came back up gasping for air on the other side, stumbling slightly as he scrambled up the bank. The cool water had felt good though, on a day so hot that most of the boys, including him, were wearing only shorts. The boy stretched himself out as he neared his goal, the Blue home base, and made a flying leap into it, staying on his feet just long enough to hand the flag to the team captain. Then he collapsed to the ground, panting hard.

“You okay?” Will, the captain, asked.

“Y-yeah,” he gasped. “Just… let me get some air.”

“You’re a hero,” Ellie informed him with a grin.

He nodded wordlessly with a tiny smile, still fighting for breath.

“Hey,” there suddenly came a new, unfamiliar, adult voice. It was light, teasing, though, like a kid’s. “What’re you doin’ to my little cousin?” Everyone turned to see a young dark-haired man standing in the open, smiling. His face was slightly worn, but friendly. He was wearing dark green pants and a cream-white shirt, visibly a form of military fatigues.

The blond boy gave a yell of sheer joy, scrambling up as though he’d never been tired to begin with and throwing himself toward the stranger. “Luke!!!”

The young adult caught the boy in his arms, hugging tight, even though the rush had knocked him backwards into a tree. He closed his eyes, whispering something inaudibly, and held onto him as though he’d never let go.

The boy was half-crying now, his shoulders quivering in sheer relief, his eyes squeezed shut and his face pressed into the older one’s shoulder. “Luke…” he whispered again. “You’re alive.”

**

“…and then this guy reaches out and says, ‘Come on, the calvary’s here!’, and I break out laughin’ in sheer relief.” Luke chuckled slightly at the memory. “At the time, I thought he was being too dang theatrical, but I was hurtin’ too much not to just reach out and take his hand.”

“How bad were you hurt?” Bo asked. His older cousin was sitting in a beanbag in a corner of the small library. The blond fifteen-year-old was curled up next to him like a little child, eyes half-closed in contentment. “You are okay now, ain’t you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Luke assured him, smiling. “Of course I’m all right. Dukes’re tougher than that. Anyway, I wasn’t bad shot to begin with. It was just the first time, and I couldn’t think very clear cause I was so scared.”

“I would be too,” Bo confided, playing with the piece of carved wood around his neck. It had been a gift before the older Duke had left for the Marines, to remember him and Hazzard by. “I was. You didn’t come home for so long… I thought you were dead.”

“Really?” Luke was a bit startled.

“Uh-huh.” The younger boy tried to hide a sniffle.

“Oh, it’s okay to cry, Bo. Even I do, sometimes. I know you were scared… I’m sorry. I wish I could have come home sooner.” He held his younger cousin close, resting his cheek in the mop of blond hair.

“How much longer do you have to be gone?”

“Ah, little cuz.” The older boy, nineteen, sighed, running his fingers through Bo’s too-long hair. “A couple more months, that’s all. I promise. I’m almost free.”

“Then we can go home,” the blond boy continued the oft-repeated narrative, smiling. “And get the farm going, and see Enos and Cooter again…”

“Yeah.” Luke sighed. “Don’t they ever cut your hair around here?”

Bo shrugged. “Not unless you ask them to.”

“You always were one to have to get taken to the barber cause you wouldn’t think to go on your own. Well, here’s an order from your commanding officer, kiddo. Ask them to.”

“Yes sir, sergeant sir,” Bo grinned. He sat up to look his four-years-older cousin in the eye. Both of their eyes were blue, but while Luke’s were extremely pale in a way that could be icy but right now held an underlying warmth, Bo’s were dark, sometimes mysterious, and right now begging like a little puppy dog.

“Aw, Bo…” Luke groaned. “I can’t speed up time. If I could, I would.”

The younger boy took his lower lip between his teeth, looking more like ten than fifteen despite his growing height. In truth, he was emotionally maybe younger than that. Bo had what the city people would call an emotional disorder — though intelligent and quick-witted, he was still rather a child emotionally, and likely always would be, never leaving home or handling strange situations very well. The receptionist at Rialton had suggested that they have a psychiatrist work with him. Luke had let them all know just how little he wanted his younger cousin’s mind messed with by leaning over the man’s desk, glaring coldly at him, and saying a few choice things that had left him looking rather pale and intimidated. Nobody had mentioned changing Bo in any way again.

Luke didn’t care about his little cousin’s ‘problem’. He loved him just the way he was. He was all the family he had left in the world. And he put up with Bo’s childishness with a gentle patience that knew no bounds. He had to, because the younger boy had some very strange views on life sometimes. But he was a refeshing, bright, innocent presence to be around, and Luke missed him more than he could say while he was away.

As though he could hear what the older boy was thinking, Bo wrapped his arms around Luke and leaned his head on his shoulder, sighing. “I miss you when you’re gone, Lukas.”

He had to smile. Bo was the only one who ever called him by his full name, and when he did, it was a term of endearment, or worry. He returned the embrace. “I miss you too. I love you, little cuz.”

“Me too.” Bo tightened the hug, then sat up again. “How long’re you gonna be here this time?”

“Well, that’s the great surprise,” Luke grinned. “I’ve got the whole weekend off. I planned on renting a motel room to stay in and going around to see the sights. I was going to ask if you wanted to come, but…” He pretended disinterest teasingly. “I figured you wouldn’t like leaving these gates…”

His breath was knocked out of him by Bo’s knocking him back against the wall and shaking him by the shoulders fiercely. “Yes, yes, yes! I do too wanna come, and you know it! Can I really stay with you?”

“Well, for the weekend,” Luke laughed. “Yeah. I already talked to the board here and they said since I was family, I could take you wherever I liked.”

“Yeah!!” The blond boy thrust a fist into the air, leaping up in a sheer exurberance that could be expressed no other way than through action, and laughed, eyes dancing. “Yee-haaa!!!”

Luke stood and chuckled softly. “Well, you’d better pack what you need for a weekend then. Time’s runnin’.”

“I’m gone!” Bo launched himself toward the door, then hesitated, spun around, and ran back to slam into his older cousin and hug him again. Luke let him hold on for a few seconds, then carefully disengaged himself.

“Go on,” he chided gently. He watched Bo run out of the room and sighed, running a hand through his own hair and smiling. His ‘little cuz’, though in truth only a few inches below his own six feet, meant the world to him. And the feeling was very much mutual — Bo was a little boy in a teenager’s body who looked up to him as a hero as well as replacement for all the family members he’d lost. It was strange, sometimes; Bo could be so open and young, yet he could be complex sometimes too, suddenly saying something particularly insightful that surprised his older cousin. Sometimes he just couldn’t figure him out.

Luke turned his thoughts away from a tangent that always threatened to give him a headache and started for the door. He was here to rest, not to puzzle things out. He’d just accept life as it came, like he always had as a kid.

Funny, that, that he didn’t feel like a kid anymore. He was only nineteen, but he felt at least a decade older inside. So grown up… when he thought about the change in him, he almost shuddered. If only life were so simple again as running barefoot through muddy fields with his younger cousins, a good catch of fish over his shoulder. But, ever since the epidemic that had taken his uncle and guardian Jesse, and his other cousin, Daisy, he had had to be everything to Bo. Brother, best friend, playmate, father to teach him how to survive the world, mother to help him and hold him. It was hard sometimes. Very hard.

And he wouldn’t trade the job for any other on earth.

It was his job to raise his younger cousin now, like his Uncle Jesse had raised him. And by God, he was going to do it right.

 

* * * * *

 

A soft breeze waved the grasses around him, and the sun warmed the spring meadow. The entire world was calm, at peace. Peace. That was such a strange thought, the tiny portion of his mind that realized this was a dream mused, peace. Once it had been his life, now it was only a memory. A memory of good times gone by. There was no gunfire, no shouts of anger or pain, no danger other than that of being late for dinner. It was a warm, lazy day, the kind where the only things moving are the bees. All else was calm, quiet.

He was home, he realized. He so longed for it to be real; it was an ache deep inside him. He recognized it now — he was homesick. Very much so.

But the place wasn’t all he missed. As he thought of others, he noticed that he wasn’t alone. A familiar face broke open in a familiar happy grin as the other lying in the grass near him leapt up and ran over to point at where a rare monarch butterfly had landed on a bush. With careful hands, he reached out and captured the flittering creature, and brought it back for the older one to look at. Then, so gently that not even the wings were rumpled, he let it go again, watching it circle up into the sky.

The younger boy stood laughing, head thrown back as he watched the butterfly catch the wind and float away. Blond hair shone in a halo around his head, and dark blue eyes sparkled in simple joy. The boy leapt for him, aimed as if to land on his chest, then darted away instead, almost begging to be chased. “Lukas! Catch me!”

Then the dream shifted, and they were both home in the farmyard, and the others were there too. Uncle Jesse, and Daisy. It was choretime…
A familiar clanging rang in his ears, and Luke blinked, sitting up and yawning as the other men sprang out of their bunks and scrambled into clothes for morning roll call. This was the final day for him! he suddenly realized. He was leaving the service today. He could go home! Take Bo with him and head back for the land that he so loved and some of the men mocked, calling him ‘hillbilly’.

Thinking of that, he thought about the dream. He’d been having similar dreams ever since he’d come back from leave two months ago. He was more than ready to go home, and never leave Hazzard County again.

Luke made record time for how fast he’d ever gotten dressed, unable to keep from grinning. The thought of going home was almost more than he could stand. He wanted to shout. Instead, he scrambled on deck to stand at attention.

The corporal read off their names as he passed by them all, then returned to salute the lieutentant, standing in mid-line. “All present and accounted for, sir.”

The lieutenant nodded curtly, and faced the men. “At ease.”

They all, without even thinking about it, clasped hands behind backs and spread their feet apart, spines still somewhat stiff. This was an easier position to hold, it was sure, on a rocking ship. But of course, the officers seemed to love yelling ‘attention!’ Luke didn’t care today, though, too busy carefully keeping a grin off his face. It wasn’t easy.

The lieutenant looked them all over, then nodded curtly. “Men, three of your fellow officers are leaving our company today, all with honors. I expect you to show proper respect for these men. Ten-hup!” Every man there snapped to attention again. “When I call your name, step forward and receive. Anthony, Greg A., Corporal. Duke, Lukas K., Sergeant. Naralka, Matt H., Sergeant.”

Luke stepped forward and received the three medals he’d won in their cases. He saluted and walked back to his place, letting just a little smile out. He wanted to laugh out loud, but he was still in the military until he left the ship, and so held it in.

Naralka saluted and came back to his place, and the lieutenant finally nodded. “Dismissed.”

Luke ran back to his bunk and finished stuffing whatever he hadn’t already into his duffel bag. It had been the longest two months he’d ever experienced, each day seeming to draw out longer than the one before as his freedom came closer.

He’d really gotten himself into this. He had told the state welfare service after his Uncle Jesse had died that he’d been eighteen. He hadn’t been. At only nineteen now after three years of service, a unusually mature-minded sixteen-year-old had lied about his age in order to be able to keep legal custody of his younger cousin. And had promptly been drafted once his ‘age’ had gotten around to the local draft board. It had torn him apart inside to say goodbye to Bo, leaving him at Rialton, but he hadn’t had much choice. If he admitted his real age, they would take Bo away from him, send him off to a foster home or something. He couldn’t bear that. So he just brought up some patriotism in himself and did his best, waiting for the day he could go home.

Now he was free.

**

After renting a car and a motel room, and exchanging his uniform for jeans and a t-shirt, the first thing Luke did was head straight to Rialton. He couldn’t wait to see Bo. It was like a magnetic force drawing him toward his little cousin, growing stronger with every mile he traveled.

Finally he pulled up to the curb and went through the gates, breaking into a jog as he crossed the lawn. He asked the receptionist to call his cousin.

A couple of minutes later, Bo came through the door, dressed in frayed cutoffs and looking at something in his hand. Luke could make out that it was some sort of colored rock. “Yeah?” Then he looked up, and his eyes lit up so brightly that a fire might have started inside them. “Luke!!!”

Luke held out his arms as the blond boy leapt toward him, and held on tightly, his throat choked with emotion. “Hi, little cuz,” he managed to whisper. “I missed you.”

“Missed you,” was the muffled reply. Finally Luke pulled back and held his younger cousin out at arm’s length, looking him over.

“Hey, you’ve grown!” he smiled. Bo was now maybe only a couple inches shorter than him. He wasn’t much more muscular than when he’d last seen him, though.

“Yeah,” the blond boy shrugged, blushing a little. “The kids have started calling me beanpole. I hate it.”

Luke grinned in amusement. “Well…”

Bo glared at him. “Don’t say it, Lukas!”

He ruffled the thatch of messy blond hair, and his cousin shoved his hand away with a grimace. “I wasn’t going to. You ready to go?”

“Go? Go where?”

“Well, I’m out of the service now. Where do you think?”

Brief blank incomprehension melted into joy. “Home?!”

“Yup,” Luke chuckled, enjoying the younger boy’s delight. “We’re going home. How long will it take you to pack?”

“Five minutes!” Bo sprang out of his embrace and ran toward the stairs. Then he halted, looking back over his shoulder. “Wanna help me?”

“Sure,” Luke shrugged, following him.

Bo’s room was very small, just big enough for a bed and a dresser, but it was adorned, he noted, with things to remind the boy of home. A first-place ribbon he’d won at the county fair horse jumping competition. A series of small photos of the two boys and their friends. A stack of car racing magazines. A framed family picture. Luke drew in a breath and touched the photo. The three kids and their Uncle Jesse had had not a care in the world until three years ago when suddenly the boys were the only ones left.

Bo’s voice came close behind him, and he jumped. “Makes me cry sometimes too.” Luke turned to see his younger cousin’s eyes wide, sad, and reached out to pull him into a hug.

“It’s okay,” he soothed, feeling the dampness of tears against his shoulder. “It’s okay to cry. I miss them too.”

The younger boy nodded and pulled away, wiping his eyes. “Luke?” he obviously was ready to change the subject.

“What?”

“What was it like? Being on a ship?”

Luke chuckled as he picked up the photo and hefted it in his hand. “Hard. Why don’t you get a bag or something to pack this stuff in?”

“Okay.” Bo went over to the closet and half-disappeared behind a bunch of boxes, rummaging around noisily. His eyes were wide in curiosity as he finally came up with a suitcase and carried it back to his cousin. “What kind of things happened? I mean every day, all the time?”

“Well,” the older boy started, smiling as he set the case on the bed and opened it up, “first, we had to get up at dawn or before, and eat some foods sometimes that didn’t taste too good for breakfast. Then we had to work all day, except for lunch break, on helping keep the ship clean, like janitors, unless we were in a battle, and then we risked our lives. It wasn’t a million bucks’ worth of fun, I’ll tell you.”

Bo was looking strangely mature again. “Was it worth it? Fighting, I mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Luke replied thoughtfully. “We were all told it was in a good cause, and I believe it for the most part, but sometimes I wonder. Neither side’s really won. It was like we were stalemated, but the governments kept sending men to their deaths anyway.”

The younger boy shuddered and wrapped his arms around Luke. “I’m glad you weren’t one of them,” he said fervently.

“Me too, little cuz.” He really had to stop calling him that, he thought. Bo was nearly the same size he was, and would get taller so it seemed. “God was watching over me, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah.”

Luke finally stepped away and started pulling things carefully down off the walls. “Maybe you oughta change out of those shorts into something more suitable for traveling.”

“Yeah.” Bo dug in the dresser and came up with jeans and a shirt. With the complete unselfconsciousness of a boy who’d spent all his life skinnydipping with his older cousin, he shucked the old cutoffs and started to redress. “I can still hardly believe we’re going home!”

“I know. I feel the same way.” Luke turned one item over in his hands before laying it on the bed. “I remember when you won this ribbon.”

“Yeah!” The blond boy grinned. “Me ’n Echo made it all the way over the little creek. ’Member Echo?”

A small, strong bay gelding with white feet and a feisty disposition. He smiled and nodded. “Yep. I was pretty proud of you.”

Bo finished dressing, fastening his belt, and came over. “I don’t have much to pack.”

“I know. Where do you want this stuff, under or on top of the clothes?”

“I was gonna put it in on top.”

“Right.” Luke lifted piles of clothes out of the dresser drawers and set them inside the old suitcase. He knew Bo could pack for himself, but right now he felt like doing it. Besides, his younger cousin took forever, and he didn’t feel like waiting to get on the road. With the speed of experience, he tucked everything away inside while Bo sat on the bed and watched him with lighthearted eyes.

“I still can’t really believe we’re going home!” he repeated.

“Well, we are,” Luke smiled. “And believe me, I’m just as happy about it as you are.” He reached out swiftly with one hand and tickled the younger boy in the side.

Bo squealed and twisted away, laughing, then leaped forward, almost off the bed, into his cousin’s arms. He hugged him tightly, his head on the older one’s shoulder. “Love you, Lukas.”

Luke chuckled, accepting and returning the hug like Bo had known he would, reaffirming their bond once again. He didn’t really mind Bo’s need for touch. Sometimes it touched something in him, too, a softness that a man couldn’t normally show to the world. “Love you too, little cuz.” He pulled back, making sure the blond boy didn’t fall off the edge of the bed in the process, and laid the last item, the framed family photo, in on top of everything else in the suitcase. Then he closed and latched the lid. “Where’s your shoes? And I don’t mean some old tennis shoes to match those shorts. Anybody lookin’ at you would think you didn’t have any good clothes.”

The younger boy giggled, sliding over the edge of his bed on his stomach and digging around underneath, upside down. “Somewhere under here…” He tossed a pair of boots out, then fell onto the floor with a rather solid thud. He rolled upright completely unhurt, still laughing.

Luke could only laugh himself. Yep, things were gonna be all right again. They had each other.

 

* * * * *

 

Harmonized singing drifted on the warm summer wind as the two boys worked side-by-side replacing a section of fence. It had to be back in one piece before the eight cattle coming tomorrow could be put in. Working together, the job was going quickly. Luke was slightly surprised at how joyfully Bo had retaken to farm life, jumping into twice as many chores as he’d had before he left with energetic fervor. Though excited to the point of childishness over many things, he displayed a surprising maturity in his love for the land. Bo was a Duke, that was sure. The land, the farm, was in his blood. As it was in his own.

Bo constantly surprised him with a strange mix of childishness and adulthood. Luke was realizing that after being away for years, he didn’t know his cousin as well as he’d thought he did. Bo would fall apart sometimes, crying over a minor incident, and then turn right around and keep his head as well as or better than Luke when it was something more major, like when an old water line burst and flooded the yard, or when a fox had been in the chicken coop, trying to bite the humans trying to get it out. Luke had a feeling that he’d be a good pair of hands to have around in an emergency.

Right now he was stringing wire, as Luke pounded in the fenceposts. He’d wanted to help do the heavier work, but after one post, had decided to let his much stronger older cousin do the posting, and was now following along behind, contentedly staple-gunning the barbed wire to the wooden posts. He glanced up, grinning, and started in on another song with hardly a pause from the end of the last one. “Way down upon the Swanee River…”

Luke joined in, “Far, far away…” He smiled and wiped his arm across his forehead before continuing his work. It was hot today, very hot for late spring. The Georgia summer had come in early, full-blast.

He enjoyed singing with Bo. His younger cousin had a musical ear that rarely strayed off-key, and the makings of a fine tenor voice that nicely counterparted his own light baritone. He also had an incredible memory. He’d hear a song once, and the melody was in his head forever. He’d mess up on the words sometimes, but not too badly, and his voice didn’t break anymore. Luke had taught him the words to almost every folk song he knew, and the younger boy took them and all the other knowledge he could glean, about anything and everything, in like a starving man.

Bo was becoming ever more open and playfully friendly around strangers, too. The Hazzard folk commented on how he’d grown and changed, and a few of the local girls were beginning to notice him. His older cousin wondered how long it would be before Bo came up out of his own little world and realized it, and how he’d react. Luke gave him nearly constant attention and companionship, not minding the chatterbox nearby one bit as long as he did his fair share of the work, and the blond teenager thrived in the healthy outdoor environment, seeming to blossom and flourish along with the seedlings they’d planted in one field already. And, like the seeds, he was growing. He’d made another couple of inches in the past few months, and luckily had seemed to stop, for the moment at least, at exactly the same height as his older cousin. He’d been getting a little hard to keep fed! He was of course still not as strong, though, and likely never would be even when he was grown, built wiry rather than particularly muscular.

Luke gave the last replacement post a final slam and dropped the sledgehammer, shaking the next one down the line to test for stability. It seemed like only the section in the middle had rotted out. Why, Luke wasn’t sure, and probably never would know. Nature did its own thing, and farmers just had to go with the flow. “That looks good,” he pronounced, looking over his shoulder. “You okay back there?”

“Almost done!” the younger boy looked up and grinned, his blond hair once again tousled. Luke’s attempts to tame it, with comb and water or by cutting it, had all failed, and he’d finally given up and decided to allow it to grow wild, though short enough to keep managable. It lightly curled around his head in a sort of halo that glowed in the sun. His eyes glowed too, with happiness, as did his smile. He scrambled up to sit on one of the posts, staplegun in hand as he carefully kept from touching the sharp points on the wire. “It’s sure hot. Can we go swimming?”

“When we finish putting the tools away,” Luke agreed, hefting the sledgehammer. “Toss the extra wire outside the fence so’s the livestock won’t get caught on it and let’s go.” He watched the younger boy jump down and obey, and then bound away across the pasture toward the house, turning after a few seconds and waving an arm impatiently.

“C’mon, Luke!”

He laughed out loud, and walked after Bo. Sometimes he wondered where he got all that unlimited energy. Then again, his little cousin fell into bed around nine every night, impossible to wake up until morning. He seemed to have two settings — full on, and off.

The two boys stashed the tools in the barn, the second thing they had fixed up, after the house, and struck off through the woods to their favorite childhood water hole. Living alone together on the farm, the cousins both had in some ways grown up. In other ways, they’d stayed kids, even Luke starting to revert from the military man he had been. They both knew the way through the thick woods that out-of-towners would get lost in as if it were their own backyard, which, in a way, it was. They moved quickly and silently when they wanted to, but today they ran and laughed, especially Bo.

The boys wasted no time getting there and stripping down. Bo laughed out loud as he ran down the hill. “Race ya!” he yelled. It was an unfair taunt, because just as he said it, he threw himself into the river with a loud splash.

Luke laughed, hanging the boys’ clothes from a tree branch so they didn’t get wet, then taking off after his younger cousin. “Oh yeah? Cheater!”

“Me?!” It was a look of outraged, affronted innocence, but it didn’t fool Luke one bit.

“Yeah. You.” He dunked the other boy, then took a deep breath and dived underwater. He’d always enjoyed swimming below the surface. There was less effort required here, and it was easier to sneak up on a target.

Like the one treading water a short distance away. Luke took an unfair advantage in using Marine training to shoot toward the younger boy and pull him under. The pair tussled underwater, wrestling for advantage for a few seconds, until Luke had to come up for air.

Bo broke surface the same time he did, giggling. “Now who’s a cheater?”

“One cheat deserves another,” Luke replied flippantly, feeling younger and more carefree than he had in years.

“No fair!”

“What’s no fair?”

“You’re stronger than I am, and you swim better!”

“That’s not unfair. Just an advantage.”

“Hah!” But both were laughing. For a four-year age difference, they were incredibly alike sometimes.

The water was comfortably cool, but thanks to the sun, not too cold. Just right for cooling off two hot farm boys. Bo dived underneath and pulled Luke’s feet out from under him as he swam past, sending the dark-haired teenager in an unplanned backwards dive of his own in revenge. The older cousin came back up fighting, throwing a practical bowwave of water toward the younger boy.

Splashing, diving, shrieking, laughing, it struck Luke that life was really so simple. At least in Hazzard. They had the farm and were slowly getting it back up and going, they’d gotten the old gray pickup to a point where it at least didn’t break down every time they went somewhere, they had their friends, and they had each other. Life was good.

As the water war slowed and finally came to a halt, he sighed comfortably, closing his eyes, going limp, and letting the water itself hold his weight up. As he slowly started to sink, he began to tread water, then ducked his head under, shaking most of the water out of his hair and eyes as he came back up. Oh, yes, life was good. Life was so good.

“Lukas!” The warning shout came barely in time for him to grab a breath before Bo landed on him from behind, giggling and pushing him down underwater briefly. “Gotcha!”

“Bo, come on!” He twisted around, gently striking out in mock-anger. “Don’t do that!” The younger boy’s only answer was a carefree, crazy grin, and Luke got himself upright and shook his head. “You are something else, you know that?”

“Yep!”

He shook his head again, laughing.

“Hey! Luke! Bo!”

They both turned at the same moment to look at the newcomer. A friend of Luke’s, Cooter Davenport was almost a member of the family. He stood now on the bank with a fishing pole, grinning. Luke waved. “Hi there, Cooter! C’mon in!”

“Naw,” Cooter called back, sitting down comfortably under the tree that held the boys’ clothing. “I’m fishin’.”

“Don’t catch us!” Bo laughed.

“Not my intention.”

Bo flipped over backwards and took off across the pond. Luke swam over to his friend, climbing out and shaking himself. He slicked as much water off with his hands as he could and reached for his underwear and jeans. “So, how’re you doin’?” he started conversationally, getting decent and then sitting down beside Cooter.

“Fine, fine.” Cooter gave his line a flick. “Garage is gettin’ some good business lately. How ’bout you?”

“We’re getting some cattle in tomorrow. We were out mending fence today. Pretty much, we’re doing great, especially for two teenagers.”

Cooter snorted. “Oh, don’t give me that, Luke. You two do a great job even without Uncle Jesse. Farmin’s in the Duke blood, I guess.” He jerked his line slightly when it seemed to move, but it was a false alarm.

Luke leaned back on his elbows and sighed. “Yeah, I guess. That’s what I finally decided after watching Bo.”

“Yeah. How’s he doing?”

He smiled. “He’s doing great. I’m really proud of him. He’s taken to all this hard work like a duck to water, and he does almost as much as I do.”

“He’s a great kid.”

“That’s for sure. He’s really something special. He handles trouble well too. Did you hear about our water lines?”

Cooter chuckled, raising his eyebrows and grinning. “You mean about your little flood? Sure did. The whole town did by the time the telephone operator was done spreadin’ the news. You get everything cleaned up all right?”

“Yep. I was gone getting some feed when it happened, and Bo kept his head on straight enough to run to find the off valve from the tank even before calling the water company for help. They got here, and about all they had to do was fix the pipe. Now I know a lady down the road a ways that panicked when that happened to her a few years back.”

Cooter shook his head. “Sometimes he acts so little, then he does somethin’ like that.”

“Uh-huh.” Luke sat up, plucking a piece of grass and rubbing it between his fingers, glancing out automatically to find where Bo was. “I’m just so darned proud of him, Cooter. I wish Uncle Jesse could see him now.” Three and a half years hadn’t been enough time to stop grieving, even though the pain was dulled now. He doubted he ever would, no matter how long he waited. You just didn’t forget the people who had been your family, who still were even though they were now gone. He felt tears sting his eyes, and tried to hide them from his friend.

It didn’t work too well. “I know, Luke,” Cooter said quietly. “I know.”

Luke brushed the back of one hand across his eyes and got control of his emotions again. “I really don’t know what I’d do without Bo. He’s my one joy in life.”

“You don’t really mean that, Luke.”

“Well, kind of, I do. I mean, I know there are other things, other friends, in Hazzard to live for and all, like you, but I love him. He’s more my little brother than he is my cousin. And he needs me like no one else ever will.”

Cooter eyed him thoughtfully. “You’re different ’n when you left.”

Luke shrugged, looking at the ground. “I guess. I saw a lot. Enough to force me to grow up. Enough to make me realize that there’s nowhere and nothing I want more than to just stay here and work the farm.”

“Some pretty bad stuff, huh?”

“Yeah. Please, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Okay.” Cooter reeled his fishing line in and recast. “So, what about these cattle you’re gettin’?”

The older Duke stretched taut muscles. “We’re getting in eight head. A couple Hereford milk cows to go in the barn, and six beef steers. Not much, but enough to see us through.”

“Huh? What, you goin’ into ranchin’?”

Luke laughed out loud. “Naw. Not a Duke! But we only got one winter corn crop planted, and it’ll take a while to get the other fields in any sort of shape to plant. It might even take the winter rains to soften the ground. We’ve got to get the money somewhere, and we’ve got a good grass pasture just askin’ to be used. The steers oughta bring a good price come fall fair, and we can sell the milk locally.”

Cooter shrugged. “I guess. I’m goin’ to sell an engine I built at the fair. Ought to get a great price for it.”

Luke grinned. “Really? How much?”

The young mechanic tried to look nonchalant. “Oh, maybe ten thousand or so.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Whoa… What’d you put in that thing?”

“A lot. I’ve been workin’ on it for a while now. It’s a racin’ engine. I’ve yet to find a chassis the right size, but I decided I’m going to sell instead of put it in a car myself.”

“Think it’s good enough for NASCAR?”

“Maybe, maybe.”

Luke snorted. “With you, that means yes.” He leaned back and slowly grinned, imagining the power of such an engine. “I wouldn’t mind havin’ a machine like that under me, no sirree.”

“What?” Bo asked, scrambling up the bank. He’d arrived just in time to hear the last sentence. “What kind of machine?”

“Hey, if it ain’t the Kid,” Cooter teased goodnaturedly. He jumped backwards when the blond boy leapt for him, both laughing.

“Quit callin’ me Kid!”

He held up his hands in mock-surrender. “Okay, okay.” He reached back to pick up his fishing pole again, reeling in one more time. “How’ve you been doin’?”

“Good. Luke, what’re you talking about?”

The dark-haired Duke hugged the wet teenager one-armed, then pointed him toward the clothes on the tree. “Get dressed if you’re done swimming. Me ’n Cooter are talking about an engine he built for a racin’ car. Maybe fast enough to go NASCAR.”

Dark blue eyes widened. “Wow!” Bo pulled on his jeans and knelt down excitedly next to the older boys. “You built that, Cooter?”

“Yep.” The mechanic’s smile was getting wide enough to come off his face, Luke thought. “I’m selling it at the fair this fall.”

“Why don’t you just drive it? Maybe Luke and me could ride with you sometime,” he added hopefully. Bo, like his older cousin, had quite an interest in racing and fast cars. They’d spent many an evening sprawled out together on the living room floor with a car magazine.

“Oh-ho, so the truth outs,” Luke teased gently.

Bo turned on him. “Well, you wanna ride in it too! Admit it!”

He shrugged, trying to hide his inner excitement. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“More than maybe!” The younger boy poked him in the ribs, then looked back at Cooter. “So, why don’t you drive it?”

“Cause I don’t have a chassis the right size and I don’t have the time to look for one, neither,” Cooter raised both eyebrows. “I had to take a break this afternoon for my own sanity, but work’s pilin’ up.”

Luke leaned back again, lower lip between his teeth, thinking. “Cooter?” he finally spoke up again.

“Yeah?”

“That annual summer’s-end race… do you think your engine could win it?”

Cooter shrugged, flicking his fishing line. “Hands down, I’d say. But I ain’t got the car to put it in.”

Luke sat up straight. “Look, if we Dukes find a chassis for that engine of yours and you race it, would you give us part of the winnings?”

That got the mechanic’s attention. He looked directly at his friend. “What?”

“I said-”

“Yeah, I heard you,” he interrupted. “But why?”

“Because we need some winter cash, and bad.” He hesitated before admitting the truth. “The livestock will help, but I’m not sure they’ll be enough.”

“Oh, well, if y’all need money…”

“No, no thanks, Cooter,” Luke smiled. He’d known that that would be his friend’s response. “You’ve got bills of your own to pay. But would you be willing to make the deal?” He was aware of Bo staring at him with wide eyes and the beginnings of a grin.

“Well…” The mechanic’s brows furrowed together. “I might… If the car wins, I could get a great price for it… Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Then his eyes widened. “Whoa!” He started reeling in. “Just when I’m not paying attention, that’s when I get a bite!”

“Least you got one,” Bo pointed out reasonably. He got up and ran down to the water to pick up Cooter’s catch, holding a wriggling trout high and laughing. “Look at the size of him!”

Luke looked at his friend. “If you share the food, I’ll clean and cook.”

Cooter looked unsure for a moment, then gave in and grinned. “You got a deal. But I’d better try an’ get a couple more before I leave, then.”

“All right.” Luke stood up and stretched. “Come on up to the house when you’re done.”

“Right.”

He grabbed his shirt off the tree branch. “C’mon, Bo. We’ve still got to make sure the gate into the pasture’s in good shape. Fixing the fence won’t be worth much if the gate falls off.”

The blond boy laughed at the thought, and nodded. “Yeah.” He accepted his own shirt, sitting down to brush off his feet and put on his boots, then followed his older cousin up the hill. “Bye, Cooter!”

“See ya later,” came the mechanic’s reply.

Bo turned to Luke as they headed back for the farm. “That engine sounds neat.”

“Yeah,” he replied thoughtfully. “Sure does.” He sighed. “If we only had some money, I’d think of maybe buying it myself.”

“What would you do with it?”

“Race,” he answered.

“You a good enough driver?”

Luke nodded, slowly. “I think so. I used to be. I’d need some practice again, but…”

He wondered what the thoughtful look on Bo’s face meant.

 

* * * * *

 

Another month went by, and the farm started having a little trouble. Of course, he’d expected that. The reality made him wonder sometimes, though, at night when he didn’t have to be confident for Bo, if he really could do this on his own. But Dukes were a stubborn clan, and Luke was no exception. They’d make it, and come out with flying colors. He knew it. It was just the middle times that might be hard.

They’d been spending off time searching for a car for Cooter’s engine for the last few weeks, with little result. The few near-junkers they had found were the wrong size. What shape they were in didn’t really matter, as that could be fixed up, but having the right dimensions for the supercharged engine did. The Duke boys and Cooter were starting to talk about giving up and just selling the thing.

Luke was lost in thought one afternoon, chopping winter firewood almost on instinct, when a voice came up behind him, startling him to the point of nearly dropping the axe.

“Good afternoon.”

He caught the sharp, heavy object before it really fell and cut into his boot, breathing out hard in relief. He turned, ready to complain angrily, and froze. He had to blink before he could believe it. A girl hadn’t set foot on Duke land for nearly four years. And this was certainly a pretty one. Straight brown hair, green eyes, slender tall build. And a slacks/blazer combination that didn’t much belong out here in farm country. City girl. He found himself fighting an amused smile.

“Can you even talk?” the girl asked sarcastically, dropping her duffel bag and placing her hands on her hips.

“Uh… yeah.” He shook his head, trying to get his voice back. He felt like an outright idiot. He drew himself up to his full height with a bit of indignation. “Of course I can talk! What’re you doing on my farm?” It felt good to say that, he noted. His farm.

“Just passing through. Who are you, anyway?”

“Shouldn’t I be askin’ you that?” he asked, bringing a bit of sarcasm into his voice. “You’re the trespasser, after all.”

The stranger tossed her long hair back. “I didn’t see any ‘keep out’ signs.”

“That’s true,” he conceded. “I don’t normally mind visitors. Except when they make me almost drop an axe on my foot.”

The girl was suddenly contrite. “Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t notice.”

Luke finally sighed and leaned the axe against the chopping block, a big stump. “It’s okay. I just didn’t expect company, and I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I’m still sorry.” The girl came up closer, eyes a bit worried. “You’re not hurt?”

“Nope. I caught it.”

“My name’s Anna,” she offered. “Anna Darren.”

Luke smiled and held out a hand for a friendly shake. Her grip was surprisingly strong for a city girl. “Luke Duke.”

Anna smiled and nodded, backing off a little. “I guess I’ll be on my way.”

He reached for his shirt, slung over the top of the woodpile. “Wait a sec.” She paused. “Where’re you going?”

“Hazzard.”

“That’s about twenty miles from here. Want a lift?”

Anna looked at him with a bit of suspicion, then smiled slightly. “Thank you. I must say you’re the polite one.” She had a correct, clear way of speaking that marked her not a Southerner.

“Lemme get the keys to the pickup and tell Bo.”

“Who?”

“Bo. My younger cousin.” He sighed. The younger boy had stayed indoors today, fighting a slight touch of the flu before it got any worse. “We live here together.”

“Alone?” Anna’s voice had softened, and he glanced back at her to see gentleness on her face.

“…Yeah.”

“You’re… young to be owning all this on your own. Something must have happened to your family. I’m sorry.”

Luke quirked a half-smile. “Are you a mind-reader or something?”

“No. But I understand people.” A slight, ladylike shrug. “My mother was a psychologist.” The older Duke started a little, only half-consciously tensing. She noticed, and smiled, holding out one hand, palm toward him. “Don’t worry. I’m not one, and I’m not going to study you.”

He half-smiled again, forcing himself to calm down. “Sorry… it’s just that psychologists and Dukes don’t get along too well.” Without giving her time to ask the obvious question ‘why?’, he started for the house. “Just wait a sec.”

He grabbed his keys and denim jacket, interrupted a seriously-concentrating Bo out of a book just long enough to explain where he was going and get a slight nod in response, and went back out. He picked up Anna’s bag and tossed it in the truck bed, then motioned her to jump in the cab. The pickup fought his starting it, as usual, but finally coughed its way to life.

He chuckled slightly. “The old gray pickup, she ain’t what she used to be.”

Anna eyed the dashboard critically. “You need a new car.”

“I know,” Luke sighed. “Just don’t have the money. It’s a good thing I’ve got a mechanic for a friend. He’s taught me a lot about keeping this heap running.”

She chuckled. “I see. By the way, I’m sorry I interrupted your… wood-chopping.”

He laughed out loud. “Don’t apologize, please! I was looking for an excuse to take a break! That’s hard work!”

She chuckled along, then trailed off. Luke stole a glance over at his passenger. She sat looking out the side window, relaxed for the most part yet tensing every time the pickup hit a bump or pothole in the dirt road. He returned his eyes to the road, pondering his own impressions of this stranger. For some reason, he’d gone out of his way to offer her a ride, to talk to her. She wasn’t a country girl, she wasn’t even a Southerner. Yet there was something about her…

“Where are you from?” he broke the silence.

Anna jumped slightly, green eyes briefly meeting his. “I’m from Kansas. I’m on my way to Florida, but my bus left me behind at a rest stop.”

Luke chuckled. “Sorry for you there. You’ll have to get a room at the hotel. There’s only two buses that stop here a day, and they’ve both already been and gone.”

“Dang.” She sighed. “I was going to a school reunion.”

“College?”

“Yeah. I took a couple years. Not great, I know…”

“Hey, you’ve got two years up on me. I got snatched out of the middle of high school into the military. Never got the chance for college. And now, with Bo and the farm…” He shrugged, wondering why on earth he was spilling all this to a perfect stranger. “Ain’t got the time or really a need for it either.”

“I guess I understand that.” A pause. “How old is your cousin?”

“Huh?” He was caught off guard by that one, and he navigated around a large pothole before replying. “Fifteen. Why?”

“Just curious.” Anna pointed off the side of the road. “What’s that?”

Luke looked. “Oh. That’s the Boar’s Nest. A fast-food place and bar, mostly. Only been there a couple years.”

“Could we stop for some sandwiches or something?”

“A couple burgers, you mean?” He shrugged and slowed, turning off into the parking lot. “Sure.”

“I’ll buy.”

He stomped down on the automatic chivalry that would protest and have him buying for them both. His pocketbook couldn’t afford it. “Thanks.”

The place was full, so they ordered their food and some cokes to go and got back in the truck. For some reason unwilling to head into town right away, Luke drove out to Hazzard Pond and parked on a little hill overlooking it. The two sat in the truck and ate, then started talking, and discovering that they had a surprising amount in common. Luke found out that Anna’s parents had both died when she was young, and that she’d been brought up by her grandmother, who had recently died as well. He told her about his own life with Uncle Jesse. Then he found out that behind the somewhat prickly exterior lay a very soft heart, as she laughed at her own tears when he told about his uncle’s death. They joked, and laughed, and learned about each other’s pasts. It felt almost as though she were going to stay, he mused, and was surprised by the strength of his attraction to a perfect stranger.

A couple of hours later, the sun glimmered on the water as it headed down toward the hills. Anna broke a long silence. “You know what’s weird? I just met you today, and it feels like I’ve known you all my life.”

That was what it was. The strange something he’d been trying to put a name, a description, to all afternoon. Luke slowly turned in his seat to look at her. “Me too.” He said it quietly, but she heard anyway, because she nodded thoughtfully.

He finally opened his door, slamming it shut to get the old latch to work, and climbed up on the wide hood, staring out over the water. After a few seconds, he heard the other door open and shut, and Anna scrambled up to join him.

“It’s nice out here,” she whispered. “I’ve been looking at the scenery all through the South, especially in the mountains. It’s some of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen.”

Luke had to agree. “Yeah. I’ve always thought so too. And I’ve seen a lot of lands.” At her questioning glance, he explained, “Marines. ’Nam.”

“Oh.” After another long pause, she brought up a subject he hadn’t been expecting, but yet probably should have been. “You say Dukes don’t get along with psychologists… may I ask why?”

Luke hesitated, but then decided it didn’t much matter. Everybody knew anyway. “It’s not all Dukes. Leastways, it wasn’t. But me ’n Bo are the only Dukes left now.” He took a sip of what was left of his Coke, which wasn’t much more than water from the ice in the bottom of the paper cup, and Anna waited patiently while he figured out the quickest and easiest way to put it. He finally chose the direct route. “Bo has a sort of handicap. He’s very young emotionally, though by no means dumb. People have tried to get me to get him counseling or help of some sort, but I know my little cousin, and it’d only tear him apart inside, confuse him. It wouldn’t change how he is!” He shook his head, the words spilling out now. He’d needed, yet feared, to talk to somebody about it for so long… Not for advice. Just a sounding board. “I can take care of him myself!” he finished vehemently.

Anna didn’t answer for several seconds. Then, “I see,” came quietly.

Luke snapped his head around to look directly at her, pinning her with his gaze. “You see what?” He knew it came out sharply, but…

“You’re protecting him.”

“Of course I am! I love him. He’s all the family I have in the world!”

“I didn’t say anything was wrong with that,” she defended. “Just making an observation.” A short pause. “You run that farm all by yourself? How old are you, anyway?”

“Just turned twenty,” he defended himself. “And Bo helps a lot. How old are you?”

“Twenty.” Green eyes met his, surprising him with their content. Instead of the superiority or even detachment he had somehow expected, there was compassion there, and his heart caught in his throat. She understood. She actually understood. Anna put her hand on his arm wordlessly, squeezing. Luke put his hand over hers, slowly starting to smile.

“Thanks. For listening.”

“You’re welcome, Luke Duke.” Her returned smile flickered amusement in the corners. “It rhymes. Intentional?”

“Um…” He hadn’t expected the question. But he didn’t mind. “I doubt it. My given name is actually Lukas. Lukas Keith Duke.”

“Oh.” Anna smiled again, as though harboring a private joke.

“What?”

“Oh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking.”

“About what?” he insisted.

The smile faded into seriousness. “That for some incomprehensible reason, I’m thinking that I just might stick around in Hazzard for a little while. It’s such a pretty place. And if all the people are as nice as you…”

“Mostly.”

“Well then…” She shrugged expressively.

Luke played with the straw in his cup, watching the sun hover on the ridge on the other side of the small lake, as though unsure whether to take the dive or not. So they were talking about the present now. Two could play at this game. “What about your family? Friends, back in Kansas?”

Anna shrugged again. “What family I do have barely knows I exist. And as for friends…” She shrugged yet again. It seemed to be her favorite expression. “I’ll make some.”

“Didn’t have many, huh?”

“Not really. School, and all that.”

Luke shifted position, as the leg he’d tucked under himself was beginning to cramp. “What’d you major in?”

“Nothing really. I just got through the first two years, general ed.” She looked at him. “What would you have done if you’d gone to college?”

He thought about that for a bit, then replied, “I wouldn’t have. I’d have stayed home and helped work the farm.” His eyes met her curious ones. “It’s my life,” he tried to explain. “It ain’t just farming… it’s the land itself. Our land. Duke land. It’s been in the family for five full generations. I’m planning on me ’n Bo bein’ number six. I… I love it. It’s my whole world.” He shrugged helplessly, unable to really put it into words. “I never knew what homesick was until I had to leave it.”

Anna was quiet for some time, then reached out and put an hand over Luke’s on the hood. He jumped at the unexpected touch. “Do you mind my asking questions?”

He thought about that, and was rather surprised to find that he didn’t. “No.” He turned his head to look directly at his new friend. “I don’t.”

They sat together on the pickup’s hood and watched the sun set. Luke noticed Anna shiver slightly and handed her his jacket. She accepted with a wordless smile of thanks.

His eyes were caught by the play of the reddish-orange light in her hair, and how her eyes seemed to glow. But then he brought himself up short. Watch it, Lukas, he warned himself. She’s just passin’ through, no matter how much we might have talked. But she might stay, another part of him argued. And she seemed to understand. Everything. Even how he felt about Bo. He wanted her to stick around, as a friend to talk to if nothing else. He talked to Cooter, sure, but there were just some things you couldn’t talk about with another guy, especially one as carefree as Cooter. He just wouldn’t understand.

“I just might stay,” Anna suddenly decided out loud. She brought her eyes away from the far shore to him. “At least for a little while. It’ll be neat to study you Hazzard folk.” Luke could hear the teasing laughter in her voice, though not a sign of it was on her face, and couldn’t keep from smiling.

He couldn’t pass up the chance to make a joke. He grinned, slowly, and leaned a little ways forward, eyes twinkling. “Well, Anna Darren, let me be the first to tell you. You ain’t in Kansas anymore.”

Anna laughed outright, pushing her wind-blown hair back behind her shoulder. “You’re right about that!”

“Honestly,” he sobered somewhat, “Hazzard’s known for being unusual even for this part of the state.”

“You ought to make interesting specimens, then.”

He mock-growled to try to hide laughter, though he was losing the battle with a grin. “Specimens?!”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded, curtly, and turned her head away regally, nose in the air. “Exactly.” Then she broke down and grinned at him. “Sorry, Luke. Do you really mind? I remember you saying you didn’t like psychologists, and I’m not really one…”

“No, it’s okay,” he reassured her. “I don’t hate the people. Just when they start trying to mess with Bo.”

“Well, I won’t. I promise. Okay?”

He grinned again, seeing another way to try to throw her off-base a bit. “Ridge-runner shake on that?”

“What’s that?”

Feeling mischievous, he spat in the palm of his hand and held it out. As he’d predicted, she hesitated, but just as he was about to pull it back and claim victory in that round, she spat in her hand and gripped his with the sureness of one born to it.

“All right then,” she nodded firmly, sharply, still smiling. “I’ll do that.”

“Thanks.” Luke didn’t know what else to say, surprised again. Finally he steeled his determination and, still holding her hand, leaned forward and briefly touched his lips to hers.

Anna’s face registered a slight surprise, but then she smiled, and as he moved away she pulled him back, into a real kiss.

When they parted, he smiled slowly, hesitantly. He hadn’t felt so… so warm inside for a long time. He realized he might be in danger of losing his heart here, and pulled himself emotionally away, distancing himself like he’d learned to do in the Marines. He couldn’t afford that. Not until he’d known her for some time. He wasn’t really sure he could ever afford it. He still automatically, almost, feared betrayal. He knew it didn’t make sense, but there it was.

Yet still…

Blue eyes met green, and two smiles spread shyly across faces simultaneously. He squeezed her hand and sat back, his thoughts and emotions, below the calm facade he presented to the outside world, awhirl.