Love reading everybody's versions of what they think is going to happen in January….so here's mine!
Rayna-
With tears running down her face and shaking hands, she gets in her truck and drives away from the Copper Meadows Ranch. She doesn't look in the rear view mirror, not even once. Before she knows it, her boot has hit the gas pedal all the way to the floor, every turn of the tires carrying her farther away from what she thought she wanted, and closer to what she needs. Peace. Her girls. Her life. A life that she has made herself on her own, not because she is riding off anyone else's fame or success. Every mile felt like a tiny piece of herself returning.
Tears run down her face, because she thinks she should feel more of something. More pain, more sadness, but all she can feel is relief and guilt. She is relieved because the weight on her shoulders that has grown heavier and heavier over the past few weeks is now gone. She is guilt-ridden because she realizes how foolish it is to not be able to make up your mind about marrying someone until the morning of the wedding. She should have ended it weeks ago, but her Wyatt stubbornness kept her believing that the lingering uneasiness plaguing her was something that could be fixed. It was fooling herself, pretending that she could ever find with Luke or any other man something even close to what she'd only had once before. It paled in comparison. It was comfortable, it was sweet, but what it really was…was just another part of a big production. Like being on a stage 24/7 for the rest of her life. Now she loved those stages. But at the end of the night, the curtain had to go down to the audience until tomorrow.
She realizes now that she has never loved Luke quite like she should have, and that is the greatest injustice to him of all, because he deserves better than that. He is a good man, with a good heart, and he deserves someone who is 100% willing to share that stage with him.
She seems to be getting quite good at ruining the men in her life lately.
The miles fly by, bringing her closer to home, and she relives the last 18 hours in her mind.
The girls' song the night before at the rehearsal dinner had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, as Rayna sat there with a smile pasted on her face to cover the doubts that had been creeping up all day, and Luke holding her hand.
It was so damn hard not to lose it in that moment, just to grab her girls by the hands and run away from it somewhere quiet and safe and alone, where she could pick them up like she'd done when they were little tiny things, and rock them in her arms, and say "It'll be alright."
Luke tensed up next to her when Maddie announced "I wrote this song with my dad." He always did this thing, Rayna noticed, when Deacon was brought up in any way, like he was trying to interrupt her unconscious thoughts. "They're really special," he said. Yes, they were. But they were hers. Hers and Deacon's. Hers and Teddy's. Not hers and Luke's. Suddenly it seemed so wrong to even try and put him into that equation. And all that talk about boarding school still bothered her. She wondered if Luke had put that idea in their heads on purpose, to get her to agree to extend the tour. But all that was forgotten when the girls started to sing, because all she could hear was Deacon's words come pouring out of their daughter.
What if I promised it would be alright….It'll be alright….
Cuz we got a love, ooooohhhh, me and you
We got a will of a tall pine once in a lifetime love, me and you
And I'll hold you close til sun comes out
Baby can you see it now
We got a love
We're as free as a blackbird, true as a good word love
Me and you…..
What do you need that you don't have
What have you lost that you can't get back
What if I promised it'll be alright
We got a candy apple red sweet steady as a heartbeat love
Me and you
Even now, thinking of those words makes her tears fall faster.
The ring is in the cupholder next to her. She doesn't want to look at it, doesn't want to even touch it, like it might bite her hand if she does. If it wasn't worth a small fortune, she would have tossed it out the window a few miles back.
When she pulls up to the gates of her house, she is stunned to see it's only been an hour, and there's already paparazzi with cameras waiting. Of course there is, she thinks, annoyed. They're waiting to try and get pictures of her in her wedding dress before she leaves for the ceremony. And they are clearly surprised to see her coming and not going.
Inside the house, Tandy is throwing a frantic hissy fit.
"Where have you been?!" She exclaims. "Now I know it's perfectly acceptable to be late for your own wedding, but we only have two hours until the limos get here, and they haven't even started your hair."
Indeed, the "team" is waiting patiently: hair people, makeup people, dress people, all standing awkwardly in her living room.
"You can go," she says to those people without hesitation. "You'll be paid for your time. Thanks for waiting."
Tandy looks confused, and Bucky looks worried.
"What the hell is going on?" Tandy demands.
"Mom?" Daphne slips her hand into her mothers and gazes up at her. "Are you okay?"
It soothes the ache in her heart a little. They know her, her sweet girls, and she has missed so much in the last six months that she can't get back.
"I'm okay," she says reassuredly, softly. "Let's go upstairs and talk, okay?"
They go up the stairs, hand in hand, the three of them.
"Get rid of all these people," she says to Tandy over her shoulder. "There's not going to be a wedding."
"but-."
"No questions right now," she says quietly, firmly. "Just do it, please."
Upstairs she sits with the girls on Maddie's bed, and they look at her worriedly as she explains that her and Luke have decided not to get married.
Maddie tries real hard not to show it, but the shadow of relief that passes over her face is evident.
"Is it our fault?" Daphne asked tentatively. "Because we wanted to go to boarding school?"
"Absolutely not," Rayna says without hesitation. "Luke has a very different life than we do, and our lives just were not going in the same direction. Does that make sense?"
"I guess," Maddie said quietly. "Does that mean we can still be friends with Sage and Colt? Even if they're not family?"
"If it's fine with Luke, it's fine with me."
"Are you sad?" Daphne asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"Maybe a little," she admitted. "But you know what? Having the two of you here with me makes everything better."
They sit on Maddie's bed for the rest of the afternoon in a warm comforting heap, leaning on each other, and Rayna listens to her girls tell her about their friends at school, their music lessons, anything they can think of. She absorbs every word.
When she finally leaves them to go downstairs and deal with the aftermath, they look a little less worried, and are excitedly making plans for the next few weeks, since there will be no trip to Australia.
Tandy pounces on her before she even hits the bottom step, takes her by the arm, and leads her away from the "base camp" that has been set up in the living room, into her private office. She points to the couch. "Sit."
Rayna sits, annoyed.
"Well, Bucky and I just spent 3 hours undoing a million dollar wedding," Tandy says. "Is there anything else you'd like to spring on us before the day is over?"
"No, I think one disaster today was enough, don't you?"
Tandy's expression softens a little and she drops on the couch next to her sister. "What happened? You were so happy, so excited."
"I want my life back," she says quietly. "And this…Ruke…Layna…this media circus….you were right. It would never end. I don't want that for my girls."
"Is that all it was?"
"Not exactly," Rayna admits.
"Deacon," Tandy says one word. It is a confirmation, not a question. And for the first time in a long time when they speak of him, Rayna doesn't hear that negativity in her voice.
She doesn't know how to answer that. It's Deacon, but it's not only Deacon. But then again, maybe it's a little more than half Deacon.
Her living room is like a war camp the rest of the afternoon, with Bucky and Tandy running interference on multiple phones and laptops, trying to figure out how to disentangle her from the Un-honeymoon tour, trying to throw the press enough of a bone to go away, trying to put a not so bad spin on it, which was impossible.
It has been 12 hours and the media is still camped out across the front gate like they are waiting for the Queen of England to appear. She doesn't dare even peek out of the curtains, with all those zoom lenses pointed in her direction.
Rayna is a prisoner in her own house.
We should have just dissolved it after the fact, Luke had said that morning when she left him standing there with a broken heart. She hadn't realized until she thought about it now how absurd that was. You didn't make a vow before god and the world because it looked good in magazines. And that was the biggest difference between her and Luke. She didn't want her life to be that kind of crazy anymore, for herself or her girls, and he would always thrive on a bigger spotlight.
"I need to get out of here," she says to Bucky, who had a phone in each hand. "Just for a little while."
"I think that's pretty much impossible, Ray," he says apologetically. "They pretty much have you surrounded."
"What are you going to do, scale the neighbor's fence and cut through their backyard?" Tandy jokes, not even looking up from her laptop. "Because that's the only way you'll get away from those cameras."
Rayna's face is determined. "Buck," she says. "Make it happen. "
##########################
Deacon-
Deacon opens his door and he doesn't even know why he is surprised to find Rayna standing there. It had been that kind of day. The kind of day where you force yourself to try and accept that everything you ever wanted just slipped away. The kind of day where you leave a hospital with the words "terminal", and "transplant" echoing over and over in your mind like a broken record. The kind of day where any tiniest, sliver of hope you ever had for everything you've ever wanted finally slides away, far out of reach. The kind of day where the love of your life not only marries someone else, but you realize you're never going to walk your daughter down the aisle on your wedding day, or maybe not be around for her next birthday, or to teach her to drive a car, or threaten her prom date.
After he'd slammed the door in Scarlett's face, he'd spent the entire day in his room, staring at the clock. Watching the minutes slip away. He closed his eyes for awhile, and when he awoke, he realized the ceremony would be all over by now. Once again he'd lost her to someone else.
It had been that kind of day. So when he opens the door late that night and finds Rayna standing on his front porch, he doesn't know why he is still shocked as hell.
All he needs right now is a bolt of lightning to come out of the sky and strike him dead where he stands, and this day would just be damn perfect.
"Hi," Rayna says quietly. "Can we talk?"
It makes him remember so many other times she'd stood there, but one in particular stuck out. I love you, and that is the truth.
He has no idea what their truth is anymore. Fate is so cruel. The doctor's words keep echoing through his mind….. cancer…liver failure…Scarlett's angry, tear-eyed plea….you ain't gonna die. Just make the appointment. Please.
And now Rayna is on his doorstep.
"Well this is a surprise. Figured you would be dancing at your wedding reception by now," he says in a strained tone.
"I guess you haven't turned on the tv all day," Rayna says, with a quiet laugh that suggests she is dangerously near tears. "Boy, if I thought the media coverage was a pain the ass before, it just turned into a nightmare. I had to scale a fence just to get out of my own backyard. Tandy was not amused."
Come to think of it, Deacon realizes as he studies her standing there, she looks like she is a very un-Rayna-like wreck. Her hands are shaking, and her eyes are puffy. And the fact remains that she is standing on his porch in boots and jeans when she should be somewhere drinking champagne and toasting her status as the latest Mrs. Luke Wheeler.
Oh my god, he thinks. She didn't do it.
"I didn't marry Luke," she says, echoing his thoughts. "Can I come in?" It sounds foreign to her own ears, asking to come in. How many years had they spent just walking into each other's houses. Is she even welcome? They hadn't talked in two weeks, since the night she'd come here to talk about the Rolling Stone article. He'd laid it on the line for her that night, just like he always did. I love you and that ain't gonna change. And out of fear she'd walked away, just like she alwaysdid.
He should tell her to go, Deacon thinks. For the sake of not only the little pride he has left, but the dignity of the entire situation. He should tell her he has moved on, just like she told him to, and to go find another shoulder to cry on. He should just slam the door in her face. Because everything was different now. And he knows Rayna. As soon as she finds out, she will be on the phone with every cancer specialist in the country. She'll want to take care of him, and he will be damned if he'll let her. He loves her too much for that. And his daughter. He loves them both too much to make them watch him suffer.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Deacon says carefully, every word cutting his throat like razorblades as it emerges.
Her face falls. "Right," she says quietly. "Well, I don't blame you I guess. I just… wanted to say…I'm sorry, Deacon. For the Rolling Stone article. For everything in the last few months…. You were right, I sold us out, and I will always regret that."
There was that word again. Us. It lingers in the air between them. Because even during the 14 years she'd been married to Teddy, they had always been an "us". Sometimes it was silent, sometimes it was like the elephant in the room. Which us? He would think. Which us is she talking about? Me and her us, or her and Teddy us?
She turns to go, head lowered, looking defeated.
"Ray," his voice is barely audible behind her. But that one word means everything.
Rayna turned to look at him, and with a sigh, he steps aside and gestures for her to come in.
###########################
It feels like an hour of silence as she sinks into the familiar leather sofa, and he sits on the arm of the chair, intently watching her, but really it's probably only a minute.
"You okay?" He asks quietly, concerned but wary.
"Not really," she says with a sigh, staring down at her hands in her lap. It feels so empty now, but lighter. The weight of that ring has been lifted. "You were right, you know. I wasn't living my life the way I wanted…and I couldn't do it. I need to stop making the same mistakes, and I need to figure out how to fix em."
He is real quiet, just sitting there. He's listening, but his eyes are everywhere but on hers, and that isn't like him.
Rayna can feel the tension coming off of him all the way across the room. It wasn't just the two of them being alone here like this. He is guarded. Something is going on. She can feel it. Pain strikes her heart, and she wonders if he took her advice this time, if he has really moved on and she is out of place even sitting here.
For the first time in a long time, she realizes she knows nothing of what was going on in his life, and he feels farther away than he ever has. It is a sad, uneasy feeling, and she vows that one way or another she will fix this.
"So that was it, huh," Deacon says quietly. "You just got tired of the idea of playing Mrs. Luke Wheeler?"
"That was part of it."
"What was the rest?"
"You," she says, her voice shaky.
Deacon's eyes finally meet hers, pained. It was what he'd waited to hear for so long, and now it wasn't just a far off hope. It was an impossible one, that made his eyes burn and his heart hurt.
"These two weeks…." Rayna says, struggling to find the right words. . "I realized what my life is like without you in it, Deacon. And I don't want that."
His breathing is ragged as he sighs.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Rayna says, her voice hitching a little. "But maybe we can find a way to ….start over from here."
He waits a long time before he answers.
I should have never opened the door, he thinks.
"Ray, I think you really need to take a little time to yourself," he says, finally able to speak. "And figure out that you're okay on your own, with the girls."
She nods, brushing the hair back from her face and rubbing her eyes wearily. "I think I'm going to take them away for a few weeks. Not to Australia obviously, but just….get away from it all."
"That'd probably be a good thing," he says quietly. "You know uh….you could always take em to the cabin if you wanted. It's empty anyway, and then you wouldn't be so far from home if anything happened."
'I think they'd love that," Rayna says with a pleased smile. "Especially Maddie. She couldn't stop going on about it for a week after you took her there in November. We'd be real grateful if that's okay with you."
"It's fine with me. When you get up there, there's a spare key-."
"Under the flower pot on the back porch," she finished. "I remember."
She reaches over and puts a hand on his arm, and just that is enough for him to feel the spark that has always been between the two of them, and is still there.
Their eyes meet, and he squeezes her fingers. "You'll be okay, Ray. You always land on your feet. Just take some time and….get back to being you."
Their eyes meet, and she feels herself melting into that same puddle, that way that Deacon has of telling her he loves her without having to say a damn word.
"If I do that," she said, her voice shaking. "Will you be there?"
It hurts, burns like fire inside his chest. Because all he wants to do is wipe those tears off her face and pull her into his arms and tell her everything will be okay.
But reality is a bitch, and nothing is ever going to be okay again.
"Yeah," he lies. "I'll be there."
#######################################
Deacon goes to the kitchen to get her some tea, and when he comes back, Rayna has laid her head against the arm of the couch, face against her folded hands, and her eyes are closed.
She looks so at peace that he hates to wake her, so instead he grabs the blanket off the back of the chair and covers her to her chin. Unable to resist, he leans over and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. She never moves.
He sits in the leather chair for a long time and watches her sleep before he grabs the paperwork out of the desk drawer nearby and heads out on the backporch to write by the porch light.
The bitter cold stings his face, but the tears on his face are hot as he starts writing. He'd never thought he'd be writing out the rest of his life at the age of 45. A person thinks they have all the time in the world, and one day with a few words it all just slips away.
The cabin should be left to my daughter, under the ownership of her mother, Rayna Jaymes. I want them to have somewhere to go when they need to escape, and it's good for that….
#######################################
Rayna wake when it was still dark out, disoriented. It takes her a second to realize she must have fallen asleep on Deacon's couch.
He was asleep in the leather chair a few feet away, still with his winter jacket and boots on.
Quietly she rises, folds the blanket, and then walks over to where he sleeps. She presses a kiss to his cheek, but he never moves.
She pulled on her boots and slips out the door.
By dawn, she has roused the girls to pack their bags, and they are on the road.