Rayna woke up with a start. She turned on the light and picked up her phone. No calls. No messages.

Where had Deacon gone and why wasn't he answering her calls?

She looked at the clock. It was 3 am. There was part of her that was tempted to go drive by his house, but his truck hadn't been there when she drove by on her way home from the Opry-not a direct route by any navigation system and she had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't find him if she went now.

She'd try again in the morning and if he didn't answer then, well, she was going to track him down using any means necessary.

Ten years earlier

"Hon, can we talk?"

Teddy looked up to see Rayna in the door of his office. He nodded and waved her in. She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. He stood up and walked over and sat down next to her.

"What's up, Rayna?" he asked. He was pretty sure he knew what might be going on, but wanted to hear it from her.

She looked down at her hands and then back up at him. "I want to talk about the tour."

"And Deacon," he added.

She nodded and reached over for his hand. Hers hung in the air for a moment, then he reached over to her and took the soft hand in his.

"So, you want him back in the band?" he asked.

"I do, but I'll only do it if you're okay with it," she replied. "Deacon is my friend, but you are my husband and I love you, Teddy. You're the father of my children and my family. I feel like I really need Deacon out there with me, on the stage, but you're the one I need everywhere else."

He looked at her intently. He wanted to believe that was true.

"It's going to be a completely different tour," Rayna went on. "I'll have my bus, the band will have theirs. I'll have the girls and the nanny with me, you when you want to join us. Deacon is the bandleader, he's playing guitar. We're not doing our old stuff, the duets, anything like that."

Teddy listened as Rayna went on about her arrangements. But as he listened, he wasn't sure who she was trying to convince that this was all totally different. Was it him? Or was it her?

And if he did say everything he was thinking, would that make her change her mind or would she just run away with Deacon? And take the girls. His girls. Except not actually…

Teddy shook his head, trying to make that thought, the memory about Maddie and what they never spoke about, just make it go away.

"You're shaking your head 'no'," Rayna said. "You don't think I should do this?"

Teddy shook his head again. "No, Rayna, I think you need to get back out on stage and it sounds like you've made a good plan. So, I say, make the offer to Deacon and see what he says. I know he's your past and I'm the present and future. It's fine, Rayna."

He smiled, but it felt a little pinched around the corners. Just smile, Teddy, he told himself. And it will all be fine.

Rayna sat across from Deacon in a booth back at the cafe they had met in after they sang at the Opry.

"So, are we going to do this?" she asked, Deacon's unsigned contract sitting on the table between them.

"How exactly is this going to work?" Deacon asked.

"Well, I think it's about moving forward and us having a new kind of relationship," Rayna began. "I trust you and I value you both as a musician and as a friend. So, I'm asking you to play in my band, ride the bus with the rest of the guys, work with me on the music and help me keep my temper in check."

"Is that last one written down?" Deacon said, smiling.

"Well, at least make sure there's a little pack of peanuts for me to eat if I get ornery. What did you used to call that?"

"Your diva dip?" Deacon offered.

Rayna laughed and nodded. "Yes, my diva dip. But, there's some other stuff I want to talk about." Her voice had gotten more serious.

"Yeah?" Deacon responded.

"I don't think we should do the old songs, anymore," she said quietly. "That's not who we are anymore. I'm excited about our new stuff and I want to write more, that's why I want you on the road so bad, but we're not gonna do the old stuff."

Deacon took a sip of coffee and sighed. "I get it, Ray. And you're probably right. And I appreciate you believing in me this way. I know you didn't put it in that contract, but know that I'll keep going to my meetings while we're out. I know that this only happens if I stay clean."

"Thanks, Deacon," Rayna responded. "I appreciate you saying that and there's nothing I want more than that. But I think that is also the reason we need to watch how we are with each other. I don't want to be putting out the wrong message to you, confusing you."

Deacon shook his head. "No, I get it, Ray. This is a new deal and I'm cool with that."

She held out her pen to him and he took it, winking at her. He opened up the contract to the final page and signed his name, then passed it to her and she signed below it.

"Welcome to the tour," Rayna said, holding her hand out to shake his.

It was their second week out, wrapping up the encore when it happened. He was a loud guy, in the front and she could hear him as plain as day.

"Postcard from Mexico!"

It wasn't one of their love songs. But it was a song that she and Deacon wrote when they were in love. And it was about a pretty hot weekend they spent in Cancun after Deacon's second trip to rehab.

It would seem to be crossing a line-breaking one of her rules.

But they'd also kind of written the song as a joke. She looked back at Deacon, smiled and nodded. He played the opening chords and came up to join her at her microphone.

(One day)
I saw him walking
(On the street)
We started talking
(Downton)
Now I'm movin'
(In the ring)
Now I'm groovin'

Halfway through the first verse, she knew she was playing with fire. Deacon was playful. And sexy and she knew it was for the audience, but she found herself playing back to him.

She tossed her hair back, watching him with the guitar, her eyes gliding down his body, taking in every move. Undressing him.

And she could feel his eyes on her, doing much the same.

(Loves comes)
Love comes
(Love goes)
Love goes
(She's gone)
I'm gone
To Mexico

When they finished, she bowed to the audience again. There would be no third song or second encore. That was a night. "Thanks, y'all!" she called and then walked off the stage and went straight back to her dressing room and called Teddy.

"Yeah, it was a good show, but I miss you, babe. You think you could join us in Dallas? Do the Texas and Southwest leg?" she asked.

The door half open, she was too busy on the phone to see Deacon standing there listening as she talked to Teddy. When she hung up, with Teddy's assurance he'd fly down in two days to meet her, she sat for a moment, then decided she had better to explain to Deacon.

She walked down the hallway, accepting the congratulations of the crew, the venue staff and other folks backstage, but when she got to the second set of dressing rooms, the sign with Deacon's name was torn half off and he was gone.

Deacon walked up to the idling tour bus and waited a moment until the driver opened the door.

"Hey, Deacon," the driver greeted him. "Enjoyed what I saw of the show tonight."

"Thanks, Joe," Deacon replied. "It was something."

He walked past the booth and long seat, through the little kitchen and past the bunks for the rest of the guys in the band. He had been surprised the first time he got on the bus when Bucky told him the bedroom in back was for him. Sure, he'd slept in the real bed in the back of a tour bus lots of times, but it had always been with Rayna in bed with him. Was this her way of indicating that he should bring whomever he wanted back to the bus? Or a sign of respect for his music and his importance to the tour as a whole?

In typical fashion, he didn't waste too much time trying to figure it out. And he'd tried both options. He'd sat there playing music and writing some new stuff and he'd also christened the bed with a waitress he'd met in Kansas City.

He was not going to sit around like a eunuch waiting for Rayna Jaymes to crook her finger back at him.

And at the same time, he wouldn't mind if they finished every single show like they had tonight. But, listening to Rayna on the phone with her teddy, he was pretty sure that tonight had been the last time he was ever singing anything about Mexico with Rayna Jaymes.

He knew that he needed to keep a lid on it, on the way he felt about her just like he needed to keep a lid on his drinking. And just like the drinking, this stuff with Rayna had triggers. She'd said they needed to stay away from the old stuff and it turns out she was right. To be the new Deacon, with the new Rayna meant giving that all up for good.

But he'd be lying if he didn't wish for the old days. Every time he thought he had it beat, that he could be Rayna's friend without that feeling coming straight through him like a knife, there it was again. But it took five times in rehab to give up booze and pills, so maybe he just needed to exercise the same kind of patience and persistence with this friendship thing.

But just like drinking, on days like this, he didn't care about what destruction it would cause. If Rayna was standing in his door right now, he wasn't sure he'd be able to exercise any kind of restraint.

At the sound of a knock on his flimsy fake wood door he looked up.

"Hey," Rayna said. "We need to talk about that?"

Deacon shrugged.

"Cause I'm thinking it was my fault. I told you we shouldn't do that old stuff and then I wanted to-I wanted to sing that song with you," Rayna explained. "And then, when it was over, I felt really awful."

"So awful you called Teddy to get him out here," Deacon replied.

A confused look crossed her face. "How'd you know that?"

"I came to your dressing room to check on you," Deacon responded. "Heard you talking to him. Heard you ask him to come out here and tour with us."

Rayna came over and sat down on the bed. "You know there can never be anything between us again," she started. "I'm with..."

"Yeah, you're with Teddy, I'm the past, I know all that stuff Rayna," Deacon interrupted. "But here's the thing-I'm not sure having Teddy out here with us, to keep an eye on you, is the way to handle it. Either you can be around me, play music with me and still go home to your husband-home to Nashville, that is or we probably need to just stop doing this, because I'm not putting myself in between you and him and I'm not gonna have him between you and me."

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to take her in this bed. But he was never making the first move. If there was any chance, ever for the two of them, he'd have to wait for her to come back.