Rayna never slept as well when Deacon was gone, so when the phone rang at 1 A.M, she was still wide awake, laying in bed with the bedside lamp on low, nostalgically flipping through pictures in an album of when the girls were tiny little things.
She'd never realized until looking back now how many of those pictures Deacon was in, especially Maddie's first few years when they'd been on tour. It was bittersweet, looking at the pictures of him giving Maddie her first guitar. He'd loved her girls before he even knew one of them was his.
She missed that man to distraction when he was gone.
The phone on the nightstand buzzed next to her, and she scooped it up, smiling when she saw his name on the screen.
"Hey Babe, how was your show tonight?"
"It was good," Deacon said, sounded happy but tired. "Real good. But I miss you."
He'd been on the road for three weeks playing shows with a couple other up and coming artists, sort of a tour they'd put together on their own.
"It's so strange, isn't it?" Rayna said, feeling a little wistful. "Me being home and now you're the one on the road." But she liked the way it was now, being home, running her label, reconnecting with the girls, her and Deacon finding their way back to being together. Finally, finally after everything that had happened with Luke, they were slowly but surely getting back to some kind of normalcy.
"Yeah, well, it's been fun," he said. "But I'm ready to be home."
"We miss you," Rayna said. "All Daphne has done is complain about my cooking, my goodness that child."
He laughed. "I've been thinkin bout what you said, you know? About us making your next album together?"
"Our next album," she corrected, laughing with him. "You still thinkin about it?"
"Yep. I think we should do it."
"That would be amazing," she said softly. "I can't wait til you're back home and we can talk about it."
"Me too."
The call waiting buzzer made her glance at her phone and she noticed an unfamiliar number.
"Listen, I have another call," she said regretfully. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yep, should roll in sometime in the afternoon."
"I love you."
"Love you, Ray. Tell the girls I miss em."
"They're at Teddy's until Monday. But they'll be happy you're home too."
"You better get that call."
"Bye, Babe."
With a sigh, Rayna ended the call and swiped her phone to answer the next one, puzzled at the unfamiliar number.
"This is the East Nashville Correctional Institute. You have a collect call from Rhett Harper. Will you accept the charges."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding," she said aloud. So much for normalcy. They hadn't heard from Rhett in weeks again. She knew Deacon was more bothered by it than he was letting on, but Rhett wasn't a kid. He was 25 years old. They'd tried to help him in more ways than one, and if he didn't want it, Rayna couldn't really see anything else they could do.
Except apparently now the help he wanted was bail money.
Boy if this isn't déjà vu, she thought wryly. She couldn't even count on both hands the number of times she'd answered these calls in their younger days, usually because Deacon and Vince were mixed up in something that involved alcohol and one of their irascible tempers getting them into trouble.
"Will you accept the charges?" The automated voice asked again.
"Yes," she said, even though she knew she'd probably regret it. "I'll accept the charges."
Rhett's voice came on the other end of the line a few minutes later. "Hello?"
"Hello?"
"Rayna? Uh….is Deacon around?"
"No, he isn't."
Silence from the other end of the phone.
"There something you wanted to ask me, Rhett? That's so important you're calling from jail at 1 a.m.?"
Like hell am I gonna have Rayna Jaymes come down here and bail me out of jail, Rhett thought silently. He'd rather sit until morning with the rest of the drunks and purse-snatchers.
"Nope. Sorry I bothered you."
The line went dead.
"What the hell," Rayna said staring at her phone. "Someone owes me for this one," she grumbled as she hung up the phone and climbed out of her comfty bed to get dressed. She was already going over the lecture she was going to give that boy in her head.
##############################
When Rayna walked into the station an hour later, the officers on duty were clearly stunned that the Queen of Country was suddenly in the business of bailing out criminals.
"Hey Ms. Jaymes, you think I can get your autograph for my daughter?" One of them dared to ask.
Great, this'll be on the front page of tomorrow's paper, Rayna thought with distaste. She gave him a pleasant smile. "No autographs tonight except on those release papers. Can I have my prisoner please? And by the way…." She added. "Since my ex husband is the mayor who controls the funding for this big old place…..I'd love to keep this out of the papers."
"Sure thing, Ms. Jaymes. We won't say a word."
"Thank y'all so much."
They made quick work of the papers, and a few minutes later her "prisoner" walked out into the lobby. Rhett looked a lot more sober than she had been expecting. He had a cut on his lip and his jaw was already sporting a nice purple and black bruise.
Rhett stopped in his tracks, surprised to see Rayna herself standing there.
"Deacon is in Charlotte," she said by way of explanation. She didn't look too happy. At all.
He felt like the biggest ass in the world.
The instant they got into the truck, before she even started driving, Rayna turned to him.
"Now listen," she said firmly. "This was your one free pass, Rhett. I think you're mostly a good guy, and you're a great musician. Don't ruin it by drinking everything away. I don't like to see you turning yourself into some kind of Hank Williams tragedy. I've seen it done way too many times."
It never ever was far from her mind, especially lately, that Deacon could have been in that car with Vince.
"I wasn't drinkin."
He hadn't been drinking much at all lately. Though he was too damn stubborn to ever say it outloud, that AA meeting had stuck in his mind a hell of a lot more than he wanted it to.
"Mmm hmmm," Rayna said, unamused. "I got some oceanfront property in Memphis to sell ya, too."
Rhett sighed. "I wasn't. Some guy next to me was pushing around his girlfriend, and like an idiot, I got in the middle of it."
She glanced over at him. "Okay."
"Okay, that's it, you're not gonna give me a whole line of questions or have Deacon drag me to anymore AA meetings?"
"Nope. I think you're plenty old enough to make your own life decisions. I just hope you make good ones."
A memory emerged from the back of Rayna's mind, of a situation just like this one.
The crowd at Countryfest had been crowded to start with, but after their show ended, they were even more hyped up, and the booze was flowing like tap water.
Rayna stood off to one side watched the next band to go on. It was hotter than hell out, and Deacon and Vince had been gone for way too long getting more beers.
A middle aged guy in a cut off flannel shirt who had clearly had too much already sauntered his way up to her.
"Hey baby, how bout you and me find somewhere to have our own party?"
"Uh…no thanks," she said distractedly, her eyes searching the crowd again for Deacon. "I'm just waiting for my boyfriend to come back."
He put his hand on her arm. "You're such a pretty little thing, I bet we could have more fun than that boyfriend of yours."
Irritated and disgusted, she shook his arm off. "I said no thanks. So if I were you-."
Vince appeared from behind the guy, his green eyes flashing. "If I were you," he said calmly. "I'd take your hands off my friend before I break em."
As grateful as Rayna was to see him, she could see exactly where this was going in a hurry.
"Vince, I'm okay," she reassured, reaching out to take his arm and pull him back. "Let's just find Deacon and get out of here."
But the two men stared each other down, and it was the other guy who threw the first punch. Before Rayna knew it, they were both down in the dirt beating the crap out of each other.
"Hey, stop!" She yelled, but it was pointless. Before she knew it, other people had joined in, including Deacon, who shoved the beer bottles in her hand, and immediately, maybe a little too eagerly got in the middle of the melee.
Rayna shook her head, remembering. She'd ended up bailing both Vince and Deacon out of a local Georgia jail that night.
"Why the hell are you smiling?" Rhett asked.
"I saw your dad do something like that for a girl once," she said nonchalantly.
Rhett got real quiet. "So you knew him pretty good then."
"We were friends, yes."
"He played in your band?"
"For awhile, he did."
"Just awhile?"
Rayna sighed "Well I fired him," she admitted. "I had to. He didn't make the best choices, but…. we were all young. Guess part of growing older is accepting that and making better ones. He was a good friend to Deacon, though. And to me too."
"Is this your half-ass way of telling me to straighten up?"
Rayna glanced over at him and raised her eyebrows. "Well you don't have anyone else to tell you to do it. So yeah, I guess it is."
Rhett gestured to the stop sign ahead. "Take a right there. My place is around the corner."
"So you're sticking around Nashville, then?"
"Got nowhere else to be," he said with a shrug. "Got a day job on a road construction crew. Might as well."
"Your mama doesn't have any family around?"
"Nah, it was just me and her. She wasn't sick long. It….happened fast."
"You know, Vince had a pretty big family," Rayna said cautiously. "I never met em, but I think he had quite a few sisters, and a brother. They might still be around, a little ways out of Jackson."
His eyes darkened. "Yeah well, I done fine without any of em this far, it can stay that way."
"Right," she said, troubled. "Did Deacon tell you about your uncle Tommy?"
"Tommy was my uncle? Well that makes a hell of a lot more sense."
Rayna looked at him questioningly.
"She kept mentioning Tommy before she died. Thought she was just confused."
Rayna sighed. "Vince had a younger brother named Tommy. He got hit by a car and killed when he was six."
"Didn't know that," Rhett said in a low voice, staring out the window. "Must have been hard on him."
"He blamed himself, and he shouldn't have. He was only twelve," she said, troubled. "But he never really got over that. Everyone has their demons, you know?"
"Can't argue with that."
"Just don't let yours eat you alive, Rhett. Okay?"
He didn't say much after that.
Rayna pulled to a stop in front of the apartment building. It wasn't anything fancy by any means, but she remembered too well what that was like. Trying to make it on your own, too proud to ask anyone for help.
"Thanks," he said as he opened the door. "Really. I appreciate it, and I'll pay you back for the bail and all."
"I know you will, I'm not worried."
She pulled an envelope out of her purse. "Deacon found this a few weeks ago. He had it sitting out to give to you, so I thought I'd go ahead and pass it along. He thought you might want to have it."
"What is it?" Rhett opened the envelope and was surprised to see an unlabeled cd.
"He burned it off an old tape he found," Rayna said quietly. "It's Vince's."
Rhett shoved it back in the envelope, and dropped it on her front seat like he'd been burned, and slammed the door. "You can keep it."
"Just listen to it," Rayna said through the open window as he turned to stalk away.
Damn this guy, Rayna thought as she threw the truck in park, grabbed the envelope off the seat and got out. She was two steps behind him. "Hey," she demanded. "Hold up for a minute. You know you could at least-."
Rhett stopped and turned. "Listen," he cut her off. "I'm real grateful and all for all you and Deacon have done for me, but stop pushing the goddamn issue like I'm supposed to feel sorry for him or something. He was never anything to me, and he's dead so he ain't never gonna be."
"Please," she said in earnest, pressing the cd case into his hand. "Just listen to it."
"Why?"
"Because I think he wrote it about your mother."
Rhett's mouth wavered a little. But this time he kept the envelope in his hand.
"Did you….ever meet her?"
"No," Rayna admitted. "But Deacon did. And Vince talked about her sometimes. Sounded like she was beautiful, and smart too."
"She was," he said, his voice getting a little hitch. "Both. Went back to college when I was 6 and became a teacher."
"You should be proud of her, raising you on her own like that," she said, reaching out to pat his shoulder. "You should be real proud, Rhett."
"She took me to one of your shows once," Rhett said slowly. "I was about ten. She said someone gave her the tickets, but I think she paid a lot cuz we were right up front row. We ate a lot of noodles for about a month after that."
"I didn't know that. That was pretty nice of her to do that for you."
"I think maybe….I don't know, she thought he'd be there or something," Rhett said soberly. "That he'd be on stage and see us standing there?"
It made Rayna's heart hurt for him. "If you were ten….He was already gone by then. Rhett, I'm so sorry."
Funny, the hand fate dealt, she realized. She'd heard the story many times about Vince and Deacon leaving in the middle of the night hell-bent for Nashville by dawn. If Deacon wouldn't have decided to leave with him….they might have never met, and it'd all be different. Their entire 26 year history had started with Vince. In a way, he'd given her Deacon, at the cost of Rhett having a father.
"Well, it didn't turn out all bad," Rhett said with a half-smile, sadness around the edges of it. "That concert is what made me wanna learn to play the guitar."
"Is that right?"
"Yep," he said, laughing softly. "I drove ma crazy begging for a guitar for Christmas that year."
"You know," Rayna said quietly. "I think….well, I think he did love her, Rhett. I know he did. And somehow they got you out of that, so it wasn't all bad."
"Guess not," he said.
"You can thank me by showing up in the studio this week, how about that?"
"You're never gonna give up on me are ya?"
"Now you're getting the idea," she said with a smile. "Now you better go in there and put something on that eye. It's swelled up real pretty already."
"Yes ma'am."
He just shook his head and gave Rayna a grin that reminded her so much of the friend she and Deacon had lost and the father Rhett had never known. She watched as he walked toward the building, head down, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the envelope she'd given him.
Rhett didn't know it, but he was family now. And you never gave up on family.
#############################################
Rhett unlocked the door to his mostly still empty apartment, dropped the envelope on the kitchen counter, and grabbed a cold can of beer out of the fridge. That envelope just sat there, taunting him. He must have stared back at for ten minutes.
"Oh hell," he muttered, grabbing it up. He took the cd case out, opened it up and walked over to the stereo, sitting on an upended crate in the corner, and put it in before he could change his mind.
Then he slumped on the couch and held the beer can to his eye.
The deep bass voice caught him offguard, being solo like that. He'd only ever heard Vince in the background of Rayna Jaymes' earlier songs.
He could hear himself in that voice. But he could hear a lot more too. The regrets of a man who had done things he could never undo.
And it's one Mississippi, two Mississippi
Counting down the seconds
Standing in the wreckage of love
On a cold grey Jackson dawn
And I know
Everybody's got their demons
Everybody's got their reasons
Why they leave when they run….
I'm half of what I used to be
One Mississippi
With a shaky sigh Rhett picked up the envelope again. Something else fell out and drifted to the floor, and as he reached for it, he realized it was an old polaroid.
He picked it up, and stared down at the scrawl written across the bottom in faded pen. Vince and Sarah 1987
The two faces looked impossibly young, maybe not older than high school aged. His mom with her long blonde curls was laughing, and the teenage boy next to her had his arm around her shoulders. His green eyes were looking at her like she was the only thing in the world, like she was his world.
His mother's words the day she died came back to him, and it made his chest ache so bad, he could hardly breathe. You know you got his eyes. If you ever find him, Rhett. You tell him I loved him, and I'm not mad he had to go. Me and Tommy will be watching out for you. It hadn't made sense then, but it did now. And maybe, he thought, maybe when his ma had hit those heavenly gates, she'd been real happy to find Vince already there waiting for her with the baby brother he'd lost.
It soothed his soul a little to think of that.
The words of the song that Rayna had echoed hit him hard. Everybody's got their demons.
He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Sorry I never got to know you, Dad." he whispered.
But he'd sure do his damnest to make him proud.
The song I borrowed is One Mississippi by Brett Eldredge
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