Teddy turns left onto the road immediately opposite the derelict barn, just as she'd told him.
It's little more than a dirt track and nobody's thought to grit it; the snow on the ground crunches under his tyres.
He squints at the directions in Rayna's handwriting on a piece of notepaper, slowing to look at the weatherbeaten sign almost hidden by snow-dusted evergreens. It confirms he's heading the right way, and he carries on.
He's nervous, as much as he doesn't want to admit it, and his gloved fingers drum on the steering wheel. Last Christmas Eve was a strange one, sure, Rayna's wedding to Luke Wheeler freshly called off, but this one takes the cake for landing him in the last place he ever thought he'd spend the holidays.
Another mile or so and he should be there. He takes his time, peering up at the watercolour-grey sky as the trees give way to a clearing and open ground stretches out before him. The last house he'd seen had been back down the other end of the track, and he wonders what on earth is going to be waiting for him, how far they could possibly be from civilisation.
And then he sees it. He's heard about the cabin, of course he has. It's been part of their story for as long as he's known Rayna. Part of their story, never Teddy's.
He pulls up next to the parked truck and stares up at the house. It's a lot bigger than he'd expected, not at all as rustic. There isn't so much as an outdoor john or a loose chicken in sight. He gets out of his car, his polished shoes landing on icy grass, and heaves the bag of presents from the passenger seat. The air is brisk, clean; he breathes in lake water and pine.
It's beautiful. No wonder the girls have been raving about it. He can't hate it, too much water has rushed under that bridge, but his stomach twists uneasily anyway. This isn't his territory.
It's Maddie he sees first. He walks slowly along the porch, wondering where the door is to let him in, if there is one at all or if he is to stay outside and watch the scene before him through glass, unable to be a part of it. Maddie is sitting cross-legged in front of a large tree, patterned paper strewn around her. She is focused intently on the package in her lap, head bowed, hands careful; she has always been a careful girl, Maddie. She cuts a length of ribbon and ties it in to a perfect bow, quietly triumphant, and Teddy smiles, remembering how she would insist as a little girl that she wrap presents herself. It took her hours when she was really young, but she would refuse help, determined to complete her task.
Daphne is at the other side of the tree, eagerly reaching as high as she can on her tiptoes. She is still only eleven - high isn't high enough to find a home for the star she holds in her small hands. She is hoisted into the air, and Teddy watches as Deacon lifts her until she can gently balance the star on the very top of the tree. When she has succeeded in her mission, her sister getting to her feet to give the seal of approval to her work, Deacon tosses her above his head and catches her, and she squeals with laughter. They are happy, his girls. They are happy and he is on the other side of the glass.
'Teddy,' Rayna's voice calls, and he looks to his right, startled. There is a door, and it's open, and Rayna is standing there in front of it smiling warmly at him, her arms wrapped around herself against the chill. 'You're gonna freeze out here, come on inside.'
So he does.
His daughters race towards him to greet him excitedly, and their warm hugs thaw his melancholy somewhat. Rayna takes his coat and ladles out a generous mug of hot spiced apple, handing it to him and ushering him towards the log fire that is crackling busily next to the tree. He hadn't realised how cold he was until he is aware of the feeling starting to return to his fingers and toes.
'Glad you could make it Teddy,' Deacon says, holding out his hand, and Teddy takes it, nodding.
'Me too. Nice place.'
Their truce is a tentative, uncertain one, forged out of necessity during the months Deacon was in the hospital and Rayna was reduced to a shell filled with grief and white-hot fear. Teddy had put any trace of his and Deacon's long-standing animosity aside to be there for Maddie, and for Rayna too. She had badly needed someone to lean on while she'd given every scrap of strength she had to Deacon to keep him afloat, and Teddy had been right behind her helping her stay upright. Funny, how history repeats itself, however different the circumstances.
They've become friends, Teddy and Rayna, over the past few months. He'd been the one who had sat her down and told her what was obvious to everyone, that it was time, that there was nowhere left for her and Deacon to run but towards each other. She'd been almost there, but after spending months sitting by his bedside holding her breath every day, it had taken a little encouragement to get her to focus on living again.
'Dinner's almost ready,' Daphne tells him, tucking her arm around his waist, and he can smell it suddenly: a turkey roasting, sweet burnt orange in the air.
Rayna, in her fine wool sweater and designer jeans, novelty elf socks on her feet, tells him she hopes he's hungry and pads over to the open-plan kitchen. He notices how the tension that has knotted her shoulders in recent months has drained away, how she breathes deeply, slowly, her face soft and open. There is something about her that he hasn't seen before, something he can't pinpoint.
'Deacon cooked the turkey,' Maddie assures him, and he laughs. Rayna has never quite mastered the art of Christmas dinner, not for lack of trying. He looks at Deacon, who shares a snicker with him that fades into slightly awkward floor-staring. They're both still getting used to not hating each other's guts.
'Don't you start that rumour,' Rayna protests, hurling a dishcloth playfully over the counter at Maddie. 'I put the little sprigs of herbs up its butt.'
'I don't think it's gonna fit on the table Mom,' Daphne says seriously, 'it has a really big butt.'
They're having Christmas dinner a day early this year at the request of the girls, Rayna had told Teddy on the phone the day before - turkey and all the trimmings, dressed in their nice clothes and sat around the table. When she'd asked what the girls wanted for Christmas this year, they hadn't asked for presents or trips or anything fancy - their only wish had been to spend Christmas Day all together at the cabin, with a strict dresscode of onesies and a diet of ice cream and leftovers. The turkey had been demoted to Christmas Eve and Rayna had stocked up on as many tubs of Cookie Dough as she'd been able to carry - which was a lot more than Deacon had expected, by all accounts. Teddy got that. Until you live with three ladies you are grossly unprepared for how much ice cream they can put away between them.
The table in the room is set with silverware and Christmas decorations, and looks like it's quite possibly a couple of decorating tables pulled together and covered with thick red linen. Deacon has never been the type to host dinner parties, Teddy isn't surprised he wouldn't own a proper dining table. The girls have transformed the makeshift replacement though, twisting holly into pretty wreaths they've sprayed gold and laid in the middle of the tablecloth, arranging white candles among the leaves. Maddie carefully lights them, scrunching her brow in concentration and glancing apprehensively at Rayna who supervises her task.
Beside each place setting is a folded napkin that Daphne claims credit for. 'They're oregano shapes,' she tells Teddy proudly, and he hides a smile. 'I learned how to do it at school. Look - this one's a snowman, see?'
He peers at the unidentifiable shape and kisses the top of Daphne's head. 'That's the best snowman I've ever seen, sweetheart.'
His daughter, in her velvet green dress, beams back up at him and between her happy face and the spiced apple in his belly, he feels the festive spirit he's been lacking start to flicker to life. He sinks into a sofa cushion, listening to Daphne's account of the (very cold) fishing trip she and Maddie had been on the day before. She's almost expert enough to progress past minnows, she informs him, and she's vowed that by the end of their stay up at the cabin she'll have caught something big enough for them to eat for supper.
'Maybe you can fish with us tomorrow,' she says hopefully, and Teddy has never so much as held a fishing rod but he nods, and tells her yes, maybe he can.
He thinks of all the worrying he's done since he and Rayna divorced; worry that he'd be left behind, that Deacon would replace him as a father to the girls. The feeling is receding. The strangest notion has begun to occur to him of late, that maybe they can make this work, this peculiar family set up. Contrary to his initial fears, the girls are closer to him than ever, not further away, and the dust feels like maybe, just maybe, it is settling.
Daphne trots to the tree and starts unloading the presents he's brought, shaking them when she thinks he's not looking; the firelight colours her cheeks pink. Maddie joins her, peering into the bag and helping her sister to put its contents under the branches. He's been lamenting their rapid growing up, but there is something about Christmas that brings out their joy and reassures him they are his children, as excited and guileless as they have always been.
Teddy wanders into the kitchen area, hands in the pockets of his pressed trousers. It's a lot calmer than Rayna's usual forays into the world of cooking, but he spots at least five wooden spoons lying around on the surfaces and knows she isn't completely reformed - she still uses every utensil she can get her hands on. The kitchen feels more familiar to him for it; it's comforting to know that she is still the Rayna he's known all these years.
'Can I help?' he asks, and she gestures to the saucepan on the stove.
'You can taste that cranberry sauce for me,' she says, 'tell me if if's any good.' When he raises his eyebrows, unable to stop himself, she sits her hands on her hips. 'Not everything I make comes out of a jar, you know.'
Teddy chuckles and dips a spoon into the bubbling sauce, lifting it to his lips. 'Not bad Rayna. Not bad at all.'
She gives a little see? shrug, pleased, and opens the oven door. Steam rushes from it, the hissing of turkey juices and an onslaught of delicious smells coming from inside, and Rayna pulls her face away from the heat, holding the door at arm's length. Teddy leans against the counter opposite and watches Deacon gently grasp her hips and move her back a little.
'I got that,' he says, taking the ovengloves she holds out and brushing her fingers as he does so, and Teddy is sure she doesn't even realise she shivers a little at his touch.
It isn't anything they do, or anything they say, that gives him the feeling in his gut. It's the way Deacon looks at Rayna as he puts the gloves on, the way the smile creeps onto her face like a steady blush she can't quite help. The moment lasts only a few seconds, but it stays with him. He's seen them around each other many times, of course - though in the past he's tried to avoid it as much as possible - but he finds it strange suddenly that he's never seen them this way. He's imagined it, during sleepless lonely nights while Rayna was out on the road, Deacon by her side, on her tourbus, on her stage. In her bed, perhaps, though he now knows that was never true. Back then though, he imagined Deacon taking any opportunity he could to get his hands on her, Rayna succumbing to the temptation like he always knew she wanted to... The hours Teddy Conrad spent seething over the image of his wife with this man.
And yet seeing them in front of his eyes now is different altogether. His imaginings were twisted with spite, coloured with paranoia and fear. The two people who stand before him evoke no such bitterness. It is, quite simply, right, the touch of his hand on her waist, the soft laughter that drifts from her when he steals a slice of potato from a hissing tray and burns his tongue. They don't flaunt it in front of Teddy, quite the opposite - he knows they hold back when he's around, and Rayna is almost shy when she catches him looking. She tucks her hair behind her ear self-consciously, busying herself pulling plates from cupboards, but it stays there, the pull that lingers between her and Deacon. So strong it is that Teddy swears he can feel the thickness in the air, tendrils that swirl around them.
'How's the new job, Teddy?' Deacon asks with interest, startling him from his observations, and he clears his throat.
'It's good, great actually, thanks,' he replies, 'I get weekends off and everything. Can't be bad huh?'
'Sure can't. I'll bet that's a luxury the new Mayor's missin' now he's in office.'
'Well, I left him some desktop golf clubs to get him through those long Saturday mornings.'
Deacon laughs. He has the same eyes as Maddie, Teddy realises. How hasn't he noticed before?
'Rayna tells me you're working on new music together.'
'We sure are. It's been a while,' Deacon says, grinning at Rayna.
'We're workin' on an album,' she clarifies, 'slowly. There's no rush with this one.'
Because they're not going anywhere this time, Teddy reads from her words - they finally got it right.
'Well I don't know about that,' he teases, thinking back to the copy of The Tennessean he'd picked up at a gas station on his way, 'seems like the press have got other ideas. They're getting desperate - today's story was that you've run off and eloped, and that's why no one's seen either of you.'
She rolls her eyes, but it's water off a duck's back. She sprinkles a little pepper into a saucepan of gravy, her head tipped to one side while she contemplates what is the just the right amount. The truth is, she's barely paid any attention to the papers in months. 'They can just cool their heels,' she says, 'they're not gettin' a peep from any of us.'
The media had gotten wind of Deacon's illness when he'd collapsed on stage at the Opry one night in February, and Rayna's daily trips to the hospital and frequent overnight stays had sent them into a bonafide meltdown. She'd given them nothing, tabloids her very last concern when Deacon's life had been hanging in the balance, but they'd assumed, of course. And speculated. And slept outside the building like hungry wolves. A loose-lipped nurse had tipped them off that Rayna was to be his transplant donor, and that had quickly cemented itself as the biggest scoop of the year, hands down.
It's been four months since Deacon left the hospital after the operation that saved his life, and still Rayna point-blank refuses to speak out in public. She's taking an extended break, leaving Highway 65 in Bucky and newly-reinstated Tandy's hands, with Watty stepping in on the creative side of things, and if Teddy had thought her unable to stay away from work for more than five minutes, he'd been wrong. When Deacon had been released she'd driven him straight up to the cabin to recuperate, and she's stayed with him ever since, only popping back to Nashville to pick the girls up for their weeks with her. They've been spending those weeks here, learning how to fish and light fires, writing songs, keeping Deacon cheerful and freshly topped up with the cups of herbal tea Rayna's been making him drink.
He's as good as new now, and Teddy thinks Rayna looks so too. Maybe this was what she needed all along - Deacon and the girls, this place, the music. It gives him a twinge of sadness to think it, but his marriage to her was an obstacle to this, something she needed at the time, sure, but something that helped her to deny what was really meant for her. Of course Deacon's drinking was a bigger block, there is no denying that. Looking at her now though, nothing in their way, is like seeing her for the first time.
'Think you'll ever come back to Nashville?' Teddy asks quietly, and she stops stirring her gravy and faces him.
'I don't know,' she replies, studying his face. 'I've been thinkin' maybe not. Not full-time, anyway.' She is nervous when she speaks, worried he won't approve. Deacon moves to the refrigerator, busying himself with its contents to give them some privacy. 'This place is good for me, Teddy. It's good for us.'
She means the girls too, and he follows her eyes towards them. They're perched on the couch, Maddie fastened to her guitar, strumming random notes while they chatter. Rayna has no need to worry - he doesn't disapprove. They look as content here as she does.
/
Dinner is a success. They sit at the rickety tables for what seems like hours, passing pots of sauce back and forth, topping up glasses and spooning vegetables onto each other's plates. Their talk is easy, the food delicious. Fairy lights wink around the edges of the glass doors and Teddy is on the right side now, the inside, with his family, where it is warm.
He leans back in his chair, full, and marvels as Daphne eats her third plateful, showing no signs of slowing down.
'You will get gout one of these days my baby girl,' Rayna says in amusement, shaking her head and patting her full stomach. 'I'm proud.'
'I'm growing, Mom. I want to be 5 foot 9.'
Rayna lifts her glass of sparkling water to her lips and smiles as she takes a sip, the flashing Christmas tree earrings the girls had given her blinking green and red. Teddy watches her set the glass down; she is wearing a simple ring on her wedding finger, and it glints in the firelight. It's been there for a few months now, appearing without fanfare when Deacon was at his worst and she barely left his bedside, long before she took Teddy's advice and jumped; it was a statement, a symbol. It looks different on her now. There wasn't a proposal, Rayna had told him when he'd asked, a short time after Deacon's operation when the colour was starting to come back to her cheeks and the shine to her eyes. There hadn't needed to be - Deacon had asked her to marry him enough times over the years. It had been time for her to make that promise to him, and she'd worn it as a silver band on her finger where it meant more than any vow she could speak aloud.
There will be a wedding, Teddy is sure, even if they don't need one - the girls will persuade them into it if nothing else, for the opportunity to wear pretty dresses and flowers in their hair, sure, but he knows it means far more to them. They see how their mother looks at this man who has been so present through their lives, and they certainly see how much happier she is now.
Maddie, in particular, is invested in Deacon's happiness too, and Teddy can't deny that he looks like a changed man. He's always worn his troubles heavily, only ever an angry word away from a volatile outburst, but he sits across the table next to Rayna, his face relaxed and his body twisted unconsciously towards her. He looks as far from the man who drunkenly jumped Teddy outside City Hall as a guy possibly could.
'I hear mashed potato is the secret to growing really tall,' Deacon tells Daphne, and she stares at him wide-eyed and pops a spoonful into her mouth, chewing quickly.
He laughs and gives Rayna a little wink, lifting her hand to his lips and holding it there a moment, and she curls her fingers around his. Teddy glances over at Maddie, who is watching them too. She holds a mug of spiced apple in both hands and her face says it is, indeed, Christmas - she has wanted this for Rayna and Deacon from the minute she stopped being mad at them all after she found out Deacon was her father. She catches Teddy's eye and blushes a little, smiling at him.
'Who says we leave all the clearing up 'til later and roast some chestnuts?' Rayna asks, and she is met with an enthusiastic chorus of approval from the girls, who fly up from their seats and beeline for the fire.
'Beats me how they can move after all that food without throwing up,' Teddy groans, shaking his head and looking at them as they topple onto the rug. 'I feel like I need a nap.'
Rayna slides out of her chair and tosses her napkin onto the table. 'Ah, the post-dinner nap. Wouldn't be Christmas without one.'
'Grown-ups,' Deacon says, mock-rolling his eyes and shooting them a grin as he dives after the girls.
They take it in turns - sort of - to pluck chestnuts from a cloth bag, the earthy smell tangling in the air as they cook. It's dark outside, but the snow that covers everything casts a cool white light across the lake, and it glows, as still and smooth as if it were glass. Inside, they rely on the fire and the Christmas tree to illuminate their evening, and it's calming, Teddy finds - not at all what he was expecting from this visit.
He munches on the chestnuts, listening to Maddie and Daphne's sweet voices sing Christmas songs, peppered with laughter. He'd considered that he should only stay for the evening and return to Nashville after dinner, but Rayna had insisted he pack a bag and be there with the girls for Christmas morning. He hadn't wanted to outstay his welcome, but he hadn't ever missed a Christmas with them, and it had made his heart ache to think he ever would. A sleepover at Deacon Claybourne's house - the very last place Teddy Conrad had ever thought he would find himself, at Christmas or any other time.
The couch is a large L-shape, and he looks over to where Rayna is curled up on the adjacent side. He's not surprised to find her fast asleep, lulled into that all-important Christmas nap by the food and the warm air, her daughters' lullabies. What strikes him is that she has slid down so that she is tucked into Deacon, his arm around her, her head on his chest. His legs stretch out before him and he is settled into a pile of cushions, and his own eyes are closed, his breaths coming slow and steady.
Teddy has never seen Rayna so at peace. He's seen her asleep on the couch at home, at her piano, too exhausted to keep her eyes open, but not once in the fourteen years she was married to him did she fall asleep on him. Not even in their bed at night - she'd always needed her own space.
He can't help but let his thoughts drift where they do; there is no question that she doesn't need space in her bed at night now. He is sure there isn't an inch of air or scrap of fabric between her and Deacon as they fall asleep. He doesn't want to dig too deeply into the notion.
'Hey Dad,' Maddie calls to him, 'come see what we made.'
He gets up and follows them to the dresser at the other side of the Christmas tree. He had't noticed before, but there are stockings hanging on it, empty for the moment. Names are stitched into them, and he reads first Daphne's, Maddie's beside hers.
'We spent all of yesterday afternoon on them,' Daphne says, in a whisper for Rayna and Deacon's benefit.
There's one for Rayna too, and another with Deacon's name. The 'D' is wonky and has been stitched over in a repair attempt, no doubt in Maddie's hand.
'They're wonderful,' Teddy tells them, and they hug him. It's then that he notices a fifth stocking, in dark green felt at the end of the row.
It bears his name, stitched in small white letters, some careful and neat, others jagged and uneven. A joint effort from both of his daughters.
He swallows thickly. 'They're wonderful. Really wonderful, girls.'
/
It's almost midnight when Daphne declares that it's officially Christmas Day which means they're allowed to choose one present from under the tree to open. She's sleepy - though she fights it with all her might - but she musters every drop of energy she has left and crouches under the tree to squish and shake and poke at packages wrapped in paper and ribbon.
They all sit together on the floor and unwrap their midnight gift, creating a whirlwind of paper and the feeling that only Christmas conjures. They stay there on the rug, and Maddie leans her head on Rayna's shoulder, yawning.
'I've always wanted to do this,' Deacon says quietly, 'sit around a tree and open presents.'
'You don't usually?' Teddy asks before he can think it through.
'No. A little more now Scarlett's in town, but surprisingly enough she ain't much for Christmas either. Never really been a thing in our family.'
Teddy watches him pick up the gift he opened and turn it over in his hands, a small smile on his face. It's from Daphne, a notebook for him to write songs in, she'd said - it has his name embroidered on the spine. She's been putting her crafting classes to good use.
He's always assumed Deacon spent Christmas with some family somewhere, friends maybe, but as he sees how pleased he is with the simple gift, he wonders if maybe he's spent all these years sat home wishing Rayna was with him to sing carols and watch the snow fall.
She's here now, and she slips her hand into his. He beams at her so happily Teddy knows it doesn't matter anymore, whatever has come before. There is snow on the ground and Deacon is wearing a reindeer sweater, and Rayna is so clearly the best Christmas present he's ever been given. Maddie scoots around to his other side and puts her arm around him, and no one needs to say it. He won't be spending any more Christmasses without them.
It's not long before Daphne's eyes close and she lets out a little snore, and Teddy scoops her up, careful not to wake her, though it would take a stampede of wild horses and even they would have a job. He asks which direction her room is in, and Deacon gets up and offers to show him, walking him towards a hallway at the far side of the house.
'Merry Christmas Teddy,' he says. 'Really appreciate you bein' there with everythin' lately. I know you and I have given each other hell for a lotta years but... it means a lot to me that you were there for Rayna and the girls through everythin'.'
'They're family,' Teddy says, 'for both of us. I'm happy for you, you know.' Deacon is a little too slow to hide his surprise, and Teddy understands - he didn't think he'd ever say it either. 'I mean it. You and Rayna... you've fought this for a long time. It doesn't take a fool to see that this is how it's supposed to be. Merry Christmas, Deacon.'
'Who'd have ever thought you an' me would end up spending the holidays together, huh?' Deacon says with a chuckle, clearing his throat.
'Not me, that's for sure. Maybe we'll manage to give each other a black eye before tomorrow's out.'
'Well sure, it's tradition.'
Deacon shows him the room at the end of the hallway that is Daphne's and leaves him to it. The room is decorated pale pink with bursts of yellow, and her favourite stuffed animals are at the foot of the wooden bed. She doesn't stir as Teddy tucks her in and kisses her forehead, and he watches her for a moment before he pulls the door to.
He walks slowly back to the living room, taking in the pictures on the walls as he goes. They're photographs, mostly. Some are newer, the girls in a little wooden boat on what looks like the lake outside, Rayna with winter sunlight in her hair. A lot are older, slightly faded - pictures of Rayna and Deacon that have clearly never been taken down. All those years Rayna was married to him, and yet here is where she really was, on someone else's wall, in someone else's heart.
Teddy rounds the corner and pauses for a moment, unseen. Maddie is on the couch, sleeping, a blanket pulled up to her chin. Rayna is still on the rug, her toes worming into the sheepskin, the flames reflecting off her face. Deacon sits behind her with his chin on her shoulder, his arms around her, hands resting on her tummy. She is murmuring something, swaying a little, and he smiles and nuzzles her cheek. She giggles - Teddy doesn't think he's ever heard her giggle. It's a good sound. She turns her head and looks up at Deacon, and the love on her face almost knocks Teddy sideways; Deacon dips his head and kisses her softly, tangling a hand in her hair.
The photograph on the wall that stands out most was taken probably twenty five years ago. The two of them on stage together, a guitar in Deacon's lap, one microphone between them. The look on their faces is the same one they share now, as though not a moment has passed. It doesn't hurt anymore, Teddy realises; she's never been his, but it's okay. She's home.