Chapter Two

Luke was in full swagger when she walked in to the hotel lobby, laughing and joking with a couple of fans. He excused himself and stopped what he was doing when he saw her, coming over to take her in his arms and kiss her right there in the middle of everything. Rayna enjoyed it, momentarily, until she realised a young girl who must be his daughter, who she had not officially met, was watching.

"Hey," she said, putting her hands on his chest to defuse the public display of affection without offence. "We have an audience."

"I think that horse has already bolted, sugar," he said, kissing her again. She supposed he was right, remembering with a jolt the sea of faces all around them as he got down on one knee the night before. "And besides, we're completely legit now. I can kiss the future Mrs Wheeler any time any place I like." She smiled and gave into his advances for a second longer before pulling back again.

"Yeah, about that..." She took a deep breath.

"What?"

"I think I'm going to keep my name."

The lunch went better than she expected. Sage, his daughter, was actually very sweet and much easier to connect with than Rayna had feared. Even Coult, slightly sheepish after the video debacle, was polite, albeit in a distinctly teenage fashion. They both asked after Rayna's girls, and they made loose plans to all get together before too long. Before the weddingwas the subtext, but Rayna tried to ignore that.

Around his second glass of wine Luke became a bit of a dog with a bone trying to get her to set a date. She tried to shake it off with a kiss and a promise that they would talk about it soon, but he was insistent.

"Doesn't matter if it's months or years from now, I just think it would be better to decide so we can get planning. There's a lot to do."

"I know. I just need to talk to the girls first. I haven't seen them since the show."

"What, you don't think they're happy about it?"

"Uh, no I wouldn't say that, I just need to know where they're at. They're bound to have a lot of questions about it."

"Like what?" Rayna squirmed a little. She didn't want to talk about this in front of the kids. But his expression, and his hand on her arm, made it clear he wasn't dropping it. She gave in.

"Like, I don't know, where are we going to live? What are they going to call you? How often will all of us be together? Where will they go on Christmas, that sort of thing."

"I get it, it'll take some getting used to. But change doesn't have to be a bad thing, baby. Maybe they'd like living on the ranch."

"The ranch?"

"Well I don't think I can fit the horses in to your yard." She crossed her arms.

"You're suggesting we move in with you?"

"I'm suggesting you think about it."

"I don't think so, babe. It's too far from school and their dad, and -"

"I just said think about it. Ask the girls. If they're not down with that we can find a new place."

"Or you could move into my place and keep the horses somewhere else," Rayna said, sweet as she could manage. Sage piped up at that.

"I don't want you to move dad. I love the ranch."

"I know kitten. But marriage is about compromise, we're trying to fit two families together here, it ain't just going to happen on it's own."

"We already have two families," Coult said, flat as a pancake. I'm sick of travelling."

"Okay look," Luke said, hands spread, trying to rescue them all, " Rayna and I will talk more about this another time. Today is about nothing more than lunch. Let's get dessert, coffee, weird little espresso things you guys like, whatever. We are celebrating." He squeezed Rayna's hand reassuringly.

Coult took out his phone and slumped down in his chair. Sage leaned over to Rayna.

"Can I see your ring?"

"Sure," Rayna said, relieved of the subject change. She held out her hand and Sage touched it in awe.

"It's beautiful," she gushed, eyes alight. Rayna liked her a lot.

"Thank you."

"I guess your last album did pretty well then Dad, judging by the size of that thing." Coult spoke without looking up. "Better than you told Mom, anyway."

Marriage is about compromise.That was true, and Rayna's rational mind knew that Luke was trying to do the right thing here. But her romantic side - the side she had thought was driving this relationship - couldn't help but think how unsexy that sounded.

An hour later, they were alone. Rayna's stomach flipped a little as he approached her. Had it really been hours since Deacon had taken hold of her waist and said all those things? It felt like mere minutes. She felt like Luke might know just by looking at her, such was the mark it had left.

"C'mere," he purred, pulling her in for a kiss. She kissed him gently, still wary of his cuts and bruises, and then pulled back.

"Babe, I really wish you'd let me talk to my daughters before you did that last night. I mean, I'm assuming you didn't?" Her tone was soft but firm and his eyebrows shot up.

"I'm sorry, are you upsetthat a marriage proposalcame as a surprise?" His shock was genuine. "Cos, you do know that's how they're supposed to be, right?" Oh, she knew. A shot through the heart when you weren't looking was more like it.

"No, Luke, of course I'm not. It was romantic. It was great. And if you'd done that in my dressing room, I'd have been delighted. But when you do it in front of the entire world... How do you think my kids feel? How do your kids feel? Did you get chance to tell them before they saw it on the internet?" He folded his arms, eyed her carefully.

"So you weren't delighted." She sighed.

"That's not what I meant."

"So your kids aren't delighted."

"Okay I feel like you're wilfully misunderstanding me here. I'm saying this is going to take some time to digest." He nodded.

"For them, or for you?" She sighed and faced him. She knew that his combative approach was a defence mechanism but it was difficult to massage him out of it nonetheless.

"For all of us." She took a step towards him and put her arms around him.

"But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Let's just take it slow, okay? We have no reason to rush."

He calmed slightly at her touch. She fought back the nagging suspicion that he had a bit of a temper, and kissed him lightly.

"Let me talk to the girls. Then we'll talk about dates, and everything else. Okay?" He let her talk him into her arms and onto the couch where they spent a couple of hours watching television, hands loosely joined. Rayna tried hard to concentrate on what was on, telling herself repeatedly that her unease was due only to the fact that she hadn't been totally honest with him. It would go away. This feeling would go away.

Maddie was unusually quiet when Rayna collected the girls from school later that afternoon. She said little on the way, and Daphne filled energetically, avoiding the topic at hand. As they pulled up at Teddy's house, Rayna slid the car into park and pulled her sunglasses off in one motion, signalling that they weren't going anywhere yet.

"Okay y'all. Let's hear it."

"Hear what?"

"Y'all are gonna have some feelings about what happened last night and I want to know what they are."

"I don't have any feelings," Maddie announced.

"Maddie.."

"I think it was kind of lame, but if you liked it, then great."

"You were very large on that screen, mom," Daphne added.

"Yes, I was." Rayna waited for more, but nothing came.

"I'm sorry you didn't know about it first. That's how I would have wanted it." They didn't respond. In the rear view mirror Rayna saw them looking at each other. She waited.

"We like Luke mom," Maddie said, "but he's not either of our dads."

"I know," Rayna started, but was interrupted.

"We like things the way they are. If you can't be married to our dad, or to my dad, then why can't you just not be married?"

She couldn't really explain it, and in place of her usual mom logic, she had nothing. A big empty head with no wise ways to explain this situation to anyone, let alone her two favourite people in the world. So she didn't. She took them inside, ate dinner with them, avoided conversation with Teddy and spent another hour feeling like the bottom was falling out of her world.

Maddie came after her as she was leaving, catching her in the hallway.

"Mom? Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Rayna answered, smoothing her jacket down after she had buttoned it.

"Why didn't you and Deacon ever get married?" And that hung there for a moment, while Rayna wondered how she had gotten so far from the lightness she had felt as she walked out on stage last night with the crowd chanting her name. At that moment everything had seemed right where it ought to be. And now they were here.

"I asked him, but he burned the lasagne," Maddie continued.

"The lasagne?" Rayna knew what Tandy would say if she'd heard that. Deacon cooksnow?

"He didn't answer," Maddie clarified.

"Well," Rayna began, taking a deep breath. "It's complicated."

"Did he ever ask you?" Rayna tensed, and then tried to relax. She could do this.

"Yes, he did," she exhaled. Rather more recently than she cared to admit.

"Did you say no?" Maddie asked, eyes wide. Reluctantly, Rayna shook her head.

"No, I didn't."

"So how come you didn't get married? Because of his drinking?" Rayna never knew how much Deacon told Maddie. Although it was pretty much all out there if you knew how to use Google anyway.

"Something like that."

"So, if it hadn't been for that, you would have been married to Deacon when I was born."

"This is all kind of irrelevant babe. The past is there to be learned from, not lived by."

"I know. I'm just curious."

"Well, if you extend this level of curiosity to that science homework I saw in your planner tonight then I will be one happy momma." Maddie smiled, letting her mom pull her into a hug. Against Rayna's shoulder she spoke, quietly but clearly.

"Mom... Please don't marry Luke."

Rayna made it to the car before she let the tears fall. Great. Just, great.