CHAPTER 7

The next morning after breakfast, John was back to check on Daphne, which was important, as he needed information from her. But "checking in on Daphne" seemed equally to be code for "wanting to talk to Rayna." Ambling down to the water, he found a much more relaxed Rayna laughing on the beach as the girls were entertaining her with their antics in the waves. John sat down beside her, noticing again how damn sexy she was with her hair blowing in the ocean breeze and not a spot of makeup on her radiant, freckled skin. "No harm in looking," he told himself. Out loud he asked, "how's our girl doing?"

"Their girl" soon ran up to them and asked John if she could get a ride in his police boat. She'd seen one of the search and rescue boats from her hiding place the night of her big adventure, but she'd been too afraid to come out in the open to wave it down for fear of the scary men she'd been running from.

"Tell you what," John said with mock seriousness. "You can have a ride on the police boat if you'll tell me what you saw while you were out in the mangroves."

Daphne paused a beat, and then nodded her head once, decisively. "Deal" she said, matching the seriousness of his tone. It was all John and Rayna could do not to laugh at her clear effort to act the grown-up.

"Not alone you're not going out there, young lady," Rayna said. "I'm coming, too."

"Cool," Daphne said easily.

"You, too, Maddie," Rayna yelled at her older daughter, calling her in from the surf. One condition of them extending their vacation was that Maddie would spend her time with her mother and sister; no more solo sojourns with her new beau. If she spent time with Davis, it was in the company of Rayna and Daphne. Maddie had clearly not been happy with this part of her punishment, but she knew better than to protest. She'd actually been quite scared when Daphne had been lost overnight. She figured if her mother grounded her for anything less than a month when they got home, she'd be getting off easy.

John radioed for the boat, and soon it was at the Rayburn Inn dock. Marco hopped off and went in search of his fiancé while the four of them climbed aboard. John threw the boat's throttle open and gave Rayna and her girls a bit of a thrill ride around some his favorite spots. They had a fun hour together, at the end of which John got what info he could about the men he'd soon learn were running a drug smuggling operation right under his nose.

And even though Daphne was safe and suffering no ill-effects from her truancy, and he'd gotten all the information he needed from her about what she'd seen on her night out, John dropped by the Inn at least once every day to check on things with his mom and dad and siblings, as you do when there's country royalty in the house. He managed to be pretty low-key about it, and, truth-be-told, Rayna enjoyed chatting with him while the girls were swimming. He made her laugh in a way she hadn't in far too long.

The morning they were scheduled to leave, John stopped by as usual to give Daphne a hug and make sure the three of them had enjoyed their vacation. Rayna appreciated how at ease he was with both girls. He was especially good with Maddie, getting her to talk more than Rayna or Teddy were ever able to these days.

As Danny loaded their luggage into the Town Car they'd rented for the ride back to the airport, John and Rayna exchanged a friendly good-bye hug.

"If you're ever in Nashville, be sure to look us up," Rayna drawled, tilting her head slightly as she slid her over-sized sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose. Through the dark lenses she continued to gaze at John, the strange sense of déjà vu that had been niggling at her all week getting stronger by the second. Suddenly she thinks she's figured out why he seems so familiar to her. "You ever been to Texas?" she asked, smiling broadly and pushing the glasses up on her head so they pulled the hair back from her face. She flashed fondly a night from what seems like a lifetime ago. She was still an opening act, playing small-time gigs, touring honkey tonks and county fairs all over the South. And she and Deacon were fightin', again. He'd gone off to drink for a night—or a few days—with some of the roadies after a small, but energetic, show in Austin. She'd been on an adrenaline high after they'd harmonized so perfectly on some new stuff, and she wanted to celebrate with him. But he took off in a huff about something, and she'd ended up at the bar with a couple of local back-up singers who'd been happy to join her and Deacon on-stage in exchange for beer money. They'd mingled with some other patrons who wandered in and out.

She hadn't thought about that night in years. The details were fuzzy, especially as she'd tied a few on herself, but she'd spent the hours between her last set and last call chatting up and dancing with the nicest young man. He'd been so polite and sweet at first she couldn't figure out what he was doing in a bar. But after a few drinks, they were carrying on like old friends. He'd never "tried" anything with her, just swung her around the dance floor and attempted, with little luck, to teach her how to shoot pool. He'd been sexy and friendly in an innocent sort of way, mentioning nineteen or twenty times that he had a girlfriend he was very committed to back in his hometown. Just, you know, so Rayna didn't get any ideas about where the night might be headed.

And here in Islamadora, the more she looked at John, the more she thought maybe, if she subtracted twenty years off his face and frame, he could've been that guy. She'd remembered his name as Alex or Eric or something like that. But it could have been John. She'd only been 18 at the time. A lot had happened since then. Easy to mix up a name.

"Excuse me?" John asked, flustered.

"You ever been to Texas," Rayna laughed as she asked him again.

"Uh, no. Should I have been? Should I go?"

"No, huh?" Rayna asked, slightly disappointed. It would have been too improbable to have been true. But it felt right. He was so familiar to her.

John just looked at her, confused. Rayna smiled shyly. "Never mind," she said, feeling too silly about the idea now to tell him the story of Alex or Eric. "But yeah, you should go some time. Austin's amazin'. Best city in the South, after Nashville, of course."

"I'll have to take your word on that," he rumbled, holding her gaze a bit longer before finally opening her car door and ushering her inside.