RAYNA

She sat in her SUV in the parking lot, staring at the back door to the Bluebird for who knows how long, pretending she didn't know what it was that made her come here tonight.

But she did. She can say exactly what it was. She can lie to everyone else, but she can't lie to herself.

It's guilt, plain and simple.

They still know which buttons on each other to press the hardest to get to the nerve, and Deacon had gotten to hers with that argument this afternoon after Juliette's Barnes' little "gift" had arrived. She knew she'd blown it up into more than it was, but really…trying to bribe a man with a $50,000 guitar had to be a new low she had yet to see in all her years of this business. She shouldn't have expected anything less from the likes of Juliette.

She might have overreacted, but there had been a truth in Deacon's words that hurt.

What are you talkin about, these songs? I play these songs! Every third Thursday I'm at the Bluebird playing our songs. You'd know if you'd been there once in the last 10 years.

That last part wasn't entirely true, though. She had been at the Bluebird countless numbers of times in the last 10 years, both performing and sitting in the crowd. But that third Thursday every month, no matter how many times Deacon asked, she always feigned excuse in some form or another. Eventually, he'd stopped asking.

The truth was, it was just too hard. Their entire history was wrapped up inside that building, from the pictures of them that still hung on the walls, to the stage where they'd first ever sang together. This was where they'd met, where she'd been doing an open mic night when he'd walked in and stood in the back just like she was about to do now, when he'd written A Life that's Good on a napkin and in return she'd fallen in love with him about ten whole minutes after they met.

Angry with him, she'd stormed out of rehearsal earlier today, but even at home she couldn't escape. Teddy and her father's little team of henchmen were waiting to question her. "Vulnerability study", they called it, asking her a string of questions about her past. She called it what it really was: trying to sweep the dust under the rug, trying to make sure nothing she'd done in her past would hurt Teddy's emerging political career.

When did you end your relationship with Deacon Claybourne?

I didn't, she said. He's still in my band. We just sort of…evolved into something else.

Well what would you call it? Did you ever have an affair with him?

Of course not.

Did you ever want to?

She was done, after that. Excused herself, to escape once more, just got in the truck and started driving around in the dark, and somehow without even realizing it at first, she'd ended up there.

And there she sat.

Her mind moved briefly to the box in the back of her closet at home, the one with all the important family papers.

Guilt.

There would always be guilt.

Watty was the one who came up with the brilliant idea for the tour. They were supposed to leave in three days. You and Deacon should go on the road together, he'd said a few weeks ago.

Watty that's a crazy idea. We can't go onstage and pour our hearts out to each other. That was a long time ago. And Deacon will never go for it. It's all different now.

But Deacon did go for it, to her surprise. He seemed to think it was a good idea as well, a way to put her career back on track and get some new music out to her most dedicated fans.

It was also a way to avoid the misery of opening up for someone else. There was no way in hell she was going on any stage before Juliette Barnes, no matter what her damn record label said.

Teddy was the one, of course, who put on the brakes over her going on tour with Deacon. It was one of the worse fights they'd had in a long time, even worse than the one after she found out he'd essentially run their life savings into the ground because of a busted real estate deal. "Cash poor", he liked to call it. She liked to call it something else: damn near broke. Teddy wanted her to ask Lamar for a loan. Like hell. The day she did that would be the same day she opened for Juliette Barnes.

You and Deacon sleeping on the same tour bus? I'm not going to say I'm okay with that, Rayna.

You never asked me if I was okay with you making bad real estate deals and running for mayor! I'm going, Teddy. I don't have a choice if we want to keep living in this house.

She sighed now, thinking of how that fight had ended. Things had not been good long before any of this happened, and it had just added fuel to the fire. They'd been trying to fix things for two years, but the gap between her and Teddy was so wide now, she didn't know if it could ever be fixed.

Somehow her feet carried her, and she got out of the SUV before she could change her mind, pulled open the back door of the Bluebird, and slipped in through the side hallway, trying to be inconspicuous, telling herself she'd just listen to a song or two and go.

Even in the middle of the fast number he was on, Deacon's eyes zeroed in on her, sensing her presence immediately.

I'm sorry, her eyes told him.

Me too.

And when the song ended, he called her up onstage, greeted her with a hug, a kiss on the cheek.

They were good, she knew. Argument forgotten. It was always like this with them, always had been.

"What you feel like singing?" Deacon asked quietly, for only their ears, shooting her a reassuring smile.

But then someone in the crowd yelled out "No one will ever love you!"

The cheers started, and with a little bit of reluctance, he signaled the band for the song they hadn't sang together in almost two decades.

Just a few lines in, and she knew they were in trouble.

Because just a song with them, was never "just a song", and as the words flowed as easily as they ever had, she almost forgot they had an audience, her gazed fixed instead on his face when they hit that line. I know why you're lonely. It's time you knew it too.

It was still there. It was there 17 years ago when they'd written that song after he'd gotten out of rehab for the second time. It was still there now, that rare feeling of knowing someone else could see your soul, and of being able to see theirs in return.

By the time they'd somehow made it through the end of the song, Rayna felt like her heart was in her throat, and it took every bit of strength she had to tear her eyes from his and back to the audience, who were on their feet giving a standing ovation.

She had a problem indeed, and this time it had nothing to do with Juliette Barnes, or expensive guitars, or how much money her husband had lost.

It was the realization that she was in love with the man sitting next to her who was not her husband.

Or maybe, she thought painfully, as she forced a smile across her face and faced the room full of people, the real problem was that she'd never stopped.