CHAPTER 2

By the following morning, Rayna and the girls were in full-on vacation mode. They'd slept until almost 10:00 and barely made it to breakfast. From there they decided that a beach vacation required a serious commitment to the beach. They grabbed their sunscreen, hats, books, and towels and were sprawled lazily surfside by 11:00.

Rayna was loving it. They spent a good long time just chatting about the girls' school and friends, music, movies, and the other guests—anything and nothing, really—while watching the sea gulls and nibbling on sandwiches Sally had brought down to them. But eventually the girls got restless, so headed into the ocean while Rayna stayed on the sand, half reading a novel she'd picked up at the airport, half watching them splash each other while bobbing in the waves. It was mid- afternoon when her cell phone rang. Rayna glanced at Caller ID then put the phone up to her ear: "Hey, Buck. How's the life of a working man? You good?" She hoped she was keeping the annoyance out of her voice.

"I'm real sorry to have to bother you on your vacation, Ray. You know I wouldn't call if it weren't urgent…. How is the vacation going by the way?" he backtracked.

"Fine, Buck. We're havin' a blast. So what's wrong? You OK?"

"Yeah, Ray." Static was cutting into the line. "I'm fine. But, well, we've got a problem…" More static broke in and garbled his words. Finally she heard, … "so that's gonna be at least three million dollars down the drain if we don't fix this fast."

"Shoot. Buck. You cut out…" The line went dead. She looked at her phone. The battery was juiced, but she had no cell coverage. Damn Horizun. She held the phone up and waved it around in the air. Nothing.

"Hey mom, get off your phone. Your on VAAACAAATION!" Maddie and Daphne were giggling as they yelled at her from atop another wave.

"Hey girls, y'all need to come in for a few minutes while I go inside and call Bucky back." Rayna wasn't comfortable letting the girls stay in the water if she wasn't there to keep an eye on them. They were fine enough swimmers, but not experienced in the ocean. She worried about rip tides.

"But mom, we're having FUN! We'll be careful. Promise!" The girls were not keen to interrupt their good time just so their mom could work during what she had promised would be a Highway 65-free week.

As they were complaining, Danny materialized beside Rayna. "Don't worry, ma'am. I'll keep an eye on them if you need to head inside for something. I won't let them out of my sight."

Rayna weighed her options. Danny seemed nice and responsible enough, even if he did smoke nearly all the time, which she did not approve of.

"I hate to impose on you," she said, glancing down at her phone again, hoping Horizun had suddenly started providing decent service in the Keys. What were the odds?

"It's no problem, ma'am. I'm happy to do it." His tone was almost cloying but his face was open and guileless. He glanced at the phone in Rayna's hand. "You can use our landline if you need it. Momma will show you where it is," he gestured up toward the main house.

Rayna thanked Danny and told the girls they had to listen to him while she was gone. "I'll be right back," she promised them.

As she started toward the inn, Davis showed up on the beach. Maddie waved excitedly, and he dove into the waves to swim out to the girls. Rayna turned back to Danny: "Keep a real close eye on that one, yeah?"

"Oh yes ma'am," Danny said solemnly but with a hint of devilishness in his eyes, the barest trace of a smile curling up one side of his mouth.

Twenty minutes later, Rayna hung up with Bucky. This vacation was just not going to plan. She headed back out to the beach and decided to wait until after dinner to tell the girls that they were going to have to spend part of tomorrow by themselves and not swimming in the ocean. Damn that Luke.

….

Tucking them in that night she said, "So listen girls. You know I wanted this week to be just about the three of us and no crazy press or touring or Highway 65 business. Right?"

"But?" Maddie's tone was sharp while Daphne just eyed her warily. Both girls sat back up in their beds.

Rayna sighed, sitting down beside Daphne. "But Luke's people are saying that by calling off the wedding when I did, I 'deliberately and maliciously harmed his image'," Rayna was trying to keep her tone even as she quoted the legalese Bucky had passed on to her this morning, "and they're threatening to sue me if I don't either pay him a lot of money or do some publicity thing his manager arranged that makes him look good, and makes it clear that this is all about me being some kind of diva." Rayna was beyond steamed but had dropped into her best Steel Magnolia negotiating voice, the one she'd perfected when telling label heads what they could kiss as she walked out the door. She was determined not to get visibly angry in front of her daughters.

"What?" Maddie exclaimed, her face wrinkling up.

"What are you going to do?" Daphne asked. She laid a hand on her mom's arm and scooted over next to her.

"Well, girls, I really hate to have to do this, but I'm going to have to make a quick trip up to Miami tomorrow to do an interview that Bucky negotiated for me instead of the one Luke's people wanted and ..."

"Nooo." Daphne interjected before Rayna could finish her sentence.

"Mom! You promised no work this week." Now Maddie was angry, slamming her palm down on the bed.

"I know girls. I know." Rayna was emotionally worn out. Damn that Luke. He had found out she was on vacation with the girls, and she knew he was doing this just to get under her skin. Well, mission accomplished.

"I would just pay him and not leave at all if I could, but we can't round up that kind of money right now with Highway 65's finances being what they are. And if I pay him now, he's just gonna find a way to come back for more." Rayna couldn't believe it had come to this. A few weeks ago, she and Luke almost made a life-long commitment to each other. They'd felt genuine affection for each other. How had everything gotten so petty?

"But mom, you didn't call off the wedding to make him look bad… Did you?" Daphne didn't think her mom would do something like that, but she was also learning that grown ups often did things she didn't expect. Or understand.

"No baby girl, I sure didn't. I loved Luke. I really, truly did. But I just couldn't marry him. And that was about us and our relationship. It had nothing to do with business." Rayna shook her head and threw up her hands on that last word. Daphne nodded, satisfied and relieved. Maddie just pulled her knees up and buried her chin in them.

"So listen. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to get up early tomorrow and head up to Miami before breakfast. It's just an hour's drive up there, then I've got this quick interview and a meeting with an attorney. At most that will all take two hours. Then I'll jump in the car and be back here in time for lunch. You'll barely have time to know I'm gone!"

Rayna's efforts to downplay the violation of trust that this side trip represented fell on deaf ears. The girls were quiet and avoiding her eyes.

"Hey. Look at me," she said to them softly. "I'm sorry, girls. I know I said 'no work.' And I meant it. But Luke's digging his heels in. I'm gonna make this as short a trip as possible and make this problem go away. If there were any other way, I wouldn't go. You know that right?"

They nodded their heads. "I guess," Maddie mumbled.

"We love you mom," Daphne said, trying to make the best of it.

"I love you, too. Both of you. More than anything in the whole wide world." Rayna stood, pulled Daphne over to Maddie's bed with her, and gathered them both in her arms, holding them for a long time. Damn that Luke.

….

At 6.45 the next morning, the radio alarm went off: "It's sooo complicated, it's driving me insane. It's just a ball and chain." Rayna slammed the "off" button as hard as she could. "You have got to be kidding me," she muttered.

By 7.30, Rayna was showered, dressed and ready to leave. The girls were starting to stir, having heard her moving around.

"Okay, girls. I'm gonna be back in a flash. But while I'm gone, there are a couple of rules, okay?"

They nodded while rubbing their eyes.

"First, no swimming until I get back. I don't want you going into the water when I'm not here." Rayna was firm and looking back and forth between them to make sure they knew she was serious.

"Okay, mom," they both said patiently. Like they didn't know that already!

"Second, Maddie you're in charge, which means you need to keep a close eye on your sister, okay?" Maddie rolled her eyes. "Maddie Conrad…" Rayna said slowly with a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice.

"Okay, mom, I get it. I'm babysitting."

"I'm NOT a baby, Maddie. I'm your sister." Daphne didn't understand why sometimes Maddie loved to hang out with her and other times she made Daphne feel like she was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her. She hoped she wasn't that mean when she got to be a teenager.

"Also, that means no hanging around with Davis."

"What! Mom! Why not?!" This day was just getting worse and worse as far as Maddie was concerned. She gave up the chance to go to the party of the year with her friends for this?

"Because I want you to pay attention to your sister, that's why." After the whole Colt kissing incident, Rayna still didn't completely trust Maddie's judgment. It was entirely possible that she'd start canoodling with Davis and completely forget about Daphne.

"So what, if we run into him at breakfast, I'm just supposed to be like 'Sorry I can't talk to you because my mom's a freak who won't let me take my eyes off of my sister for a second'?" Maddie was in fine teenage form this morning.

"You know what Maddie Conrad," Rayna's tone was sharp, starting to rise to match Maddie's. But she caught herself. She was the adult, and she was not going to be baited into an argument with a surly 15-year-old. Taking a deep breath, she started again. "IF you see Davis out on the verandah during or after breakfast, you can certainly talk with him, so long as Daphne is with you." She paused for effect, looking directly into Maddie's face to make sure she had her full attention. "But you may not bring him back to this cabin. Do you understand?" Rayna flashed on the scene of Maddie and Colt on the couch again and waited for a response.

"Yeah." Maddie muttered.

"Maddie…."

"Yes, I understand. I can talk to him outside with Daphne. I can't bring him back to the cabin. Not that I would anyway." For an international superstar who was practically a sex symbol, her mom could be really uptight sometimes.

"And you are not to leave the grounds of this inn for any reason." She looked at both girls.

"Okay mom." Daphne chirped. It wasn't going to be that big a deal, really. She and Maddie would have breakfast, maybe play some music and swing on the hammocks outside. Then her mom would be back.

"Got it," Maddie sighed.

"Good. I love you both. I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise. And then we're throwing the phones away." Rayna smiled at them, and the girls got up and hugged her.