A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers.

Chapter 10

Deacon stood at the stove cooking breakfast and Rayna sat at the table watching him. She wore his sleep pants and his t-shirt.

"Something sure smells good. I forgot what a good cook you are." She smiled at him.

"I don't know how you forgot. I was the one who taught you how to cook." He looked over his shoulder and smirked at her.

"You're never gonna let me live that down are you?" She asked even though she already knew the answer to that.

"No, I am not ever lettin' you live that down. You were a spoiled little princess and you ended up livin' with two guys whose idea of bein' uptown was drinkin' beer outta bottles that you had use a bottle opener to get the cap off." He laughed.

"You two weren't all bad. You both had redeeming qualities. Like you didn't make me pay rent." She teased him.

"I see how it is." He shook his head and consulted the clock. "Maddie! Get a move on it's time for breakfast. You don't wanna be late."

Maddie came into the room dressed and ready for school. She looked confused when she saw her mother sitting at the table. "Mom, what are you doing here?"

"Maddie, I'm a grown pregnant woman. Do I need a reason to spend the night with my boyfriend now?" Rayna asked her in reply. She'd meant what she'd said last night about not keeping secrets anymore.

"But dad said…" Maddie stammered out.

"I told you the truth. We are together, but it is messy and it is complicated. It's not always gonna be pretty. As a matter of fact of it's gonna get downright ugly and unpleasant at times, but we are together." Deacon added.

"It's more than just messy and complicated. There's a whole lot of water under that bridge. Maddie, I've loved your dad since I was just a little bit older than you are now. We've put each other through hell, but through it all we've still loved each other. Our love isn't something that's always a fairytale. Passion is double edged sword for us. We love hard and we fight hard." Rayna caught herself just in time to keep from saying that they fought hard and they fucked hard.

"Maddie, have a seat and help yourself to some breakfast." Deacon had gone all out for breakfast this morning because it was rare that he had Maddie with him on a school night. He carried a plate of sausage over to the table to go with the eggs, bacon, hash browns, and French toast he'd already made.

"Wow, this looks amazing." Maddie smiled.

"Only the best for my girls." He kissed her head and took a seat.

"If you keep this up you just might have a full time roommate." Maddie teased him.

"Maddie, do not wish that on yourself. You have no idea how trying it can be to live with your dad sometimes. He makes a mess and he doesn't clean up after himself." Rayna warned her.

"That's enough out of you. Both of you eat." He shook his head at them.

"I think you like living with him a little too much." Maddie's eyes went to her mother's growing baby bump.

Deacon's eyes got wide. "Didn't I just outlaw this topic of conversation last night?"

"You only said that I couldn't talk about it with you. You didn't say anything about talking about it with mom." Maddie smirked.

Rayna threw her head back and laughed. "She just hit her teenaged years, babe. It's only getting started for us you should get used to it. This is our punishment for everything we put daddy through."

"God I hope not. I know what we were like during our teenage years." He shivered at the thought. He knew the things that Rayna had been doing with him and he didn't want to think about some boy talking his little girl into doing those same things. "Aren't you gonna eat, babe?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna eat. I can eat all the salty food that I want your son just doesn't like anything sweet that I eat." Rayna explained to him.

"In other words he takes after me and not after you. You are the reason that there is a hidden candy drawer on the tour bus." He informed her seriously.

"Wait a minute there's candy on the tour bus that I don't know about? Where is it?" Rayna questioned.

"I can't tell you that, darlin'. The band has a pact that we won't tell you where it is." He dug into his breakfast.

"I don't know why you're so fond of your daddy. Do you hear this?" Rayna addressed the question at Maddie.

"Mom, if there was some place in the house that I could hide candy from you I would. If you know about it you don't stop until it's gone." Maddie rolled her eyes.

"I swear I don't know what I'm gonna do with you. I suppose that this is my punishment for keeping you two away from each other. You turned out just like him. I guess I needed the reminder of who your father was every time I looked at you." Rayna shook her head.

Deacon ate in silence he wasn't really sure how to respond to that comment. "I can't wait for that boy to get here all these women are gonna be the death of me." He mumbled.

"Aw, babe, we aren't that bad." Rayna pinched his cheek.

"You ain't that great all the time either." He muttered.

"Is this the ugly part you two were just talking about?" Maddie looked between her parents.

"No, this isn't us fighting if we were really fighting you would know it." Rayna assured her.

"If we were really fighting the whole neighborhood would know it. Though it wouldn't be the first time this house has seen one of our fights." Deacon added.

"It wouldn't be close to the first time and it wouldn't be the last either. A relationship is hard enough when both parties are stable for the lack of a better word. It's that much harder when you both have fiery personalities. He's a hothead and I'm a stubborn mule when I want to be. That doesn't make for the easiest time, but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world." Rayna winked at him.

"If you two are gonna be gross like this I don't think that I'm gonna be able to take it." Maddie made a gagging sound.

"She's just so wonderful sometimes she gets it from you." Rayna gave Deacon a look.

"You're not blamin' that entirely on me. You had somethin' to do with it too." He pointed out to her. "Maddie, if you're finished eatin' we need to get goin' we don't wanna be late. Or rather I don't wanna be late. Your momma is always makin' me late for somethin'."

"I'm ready, dad. Just let me go grab my backpack and then we can go." Maddie got up and went to retrieve her backpack.

Deacon stood up and pecked Rayna's lips. "I'm gonna get this one to school and then I will be right back."

"Wake me up when you get back I fully intend on taking a nap on the couch." Rayna replied.

"I will see you when I get back have a good nap." He bent down and kissed her belly. "You be good for momma. Daddy will be back soon and then we will go into the office for a couple of hours and deal with your crazy Aunt Tandy and your poor Uncle Bucky."

"Just get her to school, babe." Rayna laughed.

"I'm goin' I'll be back soon." He kissed her again and threw his arm around Maddie's shoulders.

Rayna stood in her closest looking for something to wear that would actually fit her.

"Babe, what are you doing in there?" Tandy called out to her from the bed.

"I'm looking for something to wear." Rayna called back. She needed to go shopping for maternity clothes and she knew it. The only problem was the minute that she did it would be all over the media.

"It's just dinner with Deacon I don't know what you're making a big deal out of this for. It's not like he's gonna care what you're wearing or you're going to be wearing it long knowing the two of you as well as I do." Tandy rolled her eyes at the thought. Those two never did seem to learn their lesson.

"It's not that I'm worried about having dinner with Deacon it's that he asked me to meet him up at the cabin. That means he's ready to talk. The fact that's he's ready for this talk and I'm not scares the hell out of me." Rayna replied.

"You two are gonna have to talk about it sooner or later. It's all in or all out with you there is no in between." Tandy pointed out to her.

"We don't have to talk about this. One of the things that Deacon and I are very good at is not talking about our problems. We can bury them and carry on like nothing is wrong." Rayna's voice was a bit muffled that meant she had moved deeper into her closet.

"You owe it to that baby boy you're carrying to get things sorted out with his father." Tandy reminded her.

"I know that, but if we talk about it, it makes this real and we have to deal with it. We will pop the bubble that we have been living in and we will probably have a knock down drag out fight." Rayna came out of the closet wearing a pair of Deacon's jeans and one of his t-shirts. It was comfortable and it fit.

"It's no different than when you were pregnant with Maddie. I know that you two can go on forever without actually having a meaningful conversation. But it's not fair to Maddie or the baby for you two to be hanging out in the state of limbo that you're in. They need their parents to have their shit together." Tandy tried to reason with her. "Is that what you're wearing?" She looked her sister up and down.

"I know that I really do, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to get into it with him." Rayna shrugged her shoulders. "Yes, this is what I'm wearing. Like you said it's Deacon he's not gonna care what I have on. He's not really big on formalities."

"You need to go shopping for maternity clothes. You're not gonna be able to put that off for much longer." Tandy told her.

"I know that's another thing I'm putting off because I don't want to give the tabloids any fodder for some sensational story." Rayna started throwing clothes into a bag.

"You're gonna leave this behind?" Tandy held up a sexy black nighty.

"Lingerie really isn't my style. That's something left over from when I was trying to make things work with Teddy and you know how that worked out. Besides that, Deacon's favorite thing on me is nothing or nothing, but one of his t-shirts." Rayna skipped on taking the lingerie with her.

"What you see in him I will never know." Tandy groaned. "You're only supposed to be going up there for dinner why are you taking three days' worth of clothes with you?"

"Because once Deacon and I start talking it can go on for awhile and I have no intentions of driving back home tonight. It's a little bit of a drive up to the cabin and I really should think about getting on the road." Rayna retorted.

"I should trust him to feed you why? This man's idea of fine cuisine is eating spaghetti out of the can." Tandy rolled her eyes again.

"Tandy, he's actually a very good cook. He's better at it than I am. I need to go. I don't want to be stuck in traffic." Rayna threw her bag over her shoulder.

"Just be careful and make good decisions." Tandy called after her.

Deacon was out back splitting firewood when Rayna pulled into the driveway.

"You're just as good at that now as you were when you first bought the place." Rayna said from the back porch.

"I must have been in a zone I didn't hear you pull up." He smiled up at her.

"You were. As a matter of fact, I was standing here for a little while watching you before I said anything and you didn't even notice." She smiled back at him.

He gathered up an armful of firewood and walked up on the back porch. He paused to steal a kiss from her. "Did you like what you saw?" He walked into the cabin.

"Darlin', I didn't just like it I loved it." She smirked and followed him inside.

He dropped the wood in a pile beside the fireplace. "Come on in and make yourself at home."

She looked around the cabin and everything was still the same as it was the last time she had been here. Deacon wasn't one to change anything unless someone made him. It was comforting to her to know that he hadn't changed their dream house. "It still looks the same as it did the morning I dropped that ring at your feet."

"I wish like hell that I could remember that. Not the part where you gave the ring back, but the part where we made our little girl." He shrugged his shoulders.

"So, we are just gonna get right into this talk without any foreplay." She quipped.

"I think we've put this off for as long as we can and we need to talk 'bout it now whether we want to or not." He replied.

"You're right and I know you are." She could admit that to him, but she wouldn't to anyone else.

"So, why'd you do it Ray? Why am I good enough to be his daddy when I wasn't good enough to be Maddie's daddy?" He asked her the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for weeks.

"Deacon, you have to understand what you were like back then. The things you can't remember because you were blackout drunk are the things that I will never forget. I honestly thought that you were going to drink yourself to death. You were in no position to take care of yourself much less a child who was gonna depend on you for everything." She told him.

"Here's my problem with that. I got clean and I got sober. She wasn't that old when I got out of rehab the last time. You could have told me. Would I have been pissed off? Hell yeah, but we could have worked it out. You didn't even give me the chance to prove myself you just took the choice out of my hands." He argued with her.

"How was I supposed to know that your fifth time in rehab was gonna be the one that stuck. I would have been waiting for you to get out the fifth time just like I had been the other four times if I hadn't been pregnant. I had to think of our little girl and what was best for her. At the time it sure as hell wasn't you." She argued back.

"There were so many other times that you could have told me. You didn't have to let me be alone with her until you were sure that I could be trusted with her, but you could have told me. The bitch part of it was you hired me back into your band and you damn near forced her on me, but you couldn't tell me that I was her daddy." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I wanted to tell you, Deacon. The hardest part of seeing how good you were with her was knowing she was yours and you didn't know it. I couldn't tell you that she was yours though because I promised Teddy that I wouldn't. He was a good father to her and a dependable husband to me. I couldn't hurt him that way." Rayna threw herself down on the couch.

"But it was ok to hurt me and Maddie? He had no right to tell you that you had to keep my daughter from me. Every time I think 'bout him doin' that and then thinkin' he still gets to call the shots it makes me wanna put my fist through his face." Deacon seethed.

"Babe, please, I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to protect our daughter. Deep down some rational part of you has to understand that." She pleaded with him.

"I understand you wantin' to protect our daughter. The key words in that sentence were our daughter though ours not Teddy's or Tandy's or anyone else's she's ours. No one else should have had a say or factored into your decision." His voice rose a little bit. He didn't want to upset her or put anymore stress on her, but he needed to get this off his chest.

"I didn't know what else to do, Deacon. You were a mess and I was terrified. Everyone else painted a really pretty picture and I let myself be talked into it." She could admit that much. There were so many times she had almost told him about Maddie and then chickened out at the last second.

"Would you have told me if she hadn't found the DNA test?" That question had been in the back of his mind since he found out Maddie was his.

"Yes, I was gonna tell you. I didn't know how to tell you, but I was gonna tell you. More importantly I didn't know how to tell her. When is the right time to blow your child's life up?" She argued with him some more.

"Here's a thought don't build your child's life on a lie and then you won't have to worry 'bout blowin' it up!" He was starting to lose his cool.

"Really, Deacon? We are gonna go to this place right now?" She rested her hand protectively on her stomach.

"Right there, that right there is why I have been puttin' this talk off." He pointed to her belly. "I didn't want to put anymore stress on him than he's already been under. The thing of it is though I owe it to him to come into this world without me hatin' his momma a little bit."

"You think you hate me for what I did, well I hate you for puttin' us in that position to begin with. All I wanted to do was raise her up with you and give her a lovin' home. I couldn't give her that with you though." She closed her eyes to fight off the tears.

"I didn't put us in any position I got sober. Own up to why you did, Ray. Don't try to pass the blame off on me. At first it was on me I can admit that much, but after you saw that rehab had stuck it landed squarely on you." Deacon wasn't letting her off the hook that easily. He deserved a real reason.

"Because I was tired, Deacon. I was tired and scared and a little bit relieved to have you out of my life. If I wasn't involved with you then I wouldn't have to be around to watch you drink yourself to death." Rayna sighed.

"And that would have made sense if you had just let me go, but instead you kept me around." He clenched his jaw.

"I kept you 'round because I didn't want to rob you and Maddie of the chance to know each other. I always knew the day would come that you found out about her. I just always thought she would be older and we could talk about it like adults. I thought that you would both hear the words from my mouth at the very least you deserved that." She looked down at her feet as the tears filled her eyes.

"But, why, Ray? Did you not believe in me anymore or were you just sick of me and didn't want to be tied to me for another eighteen years?" He rubbed his hands over his face.

"I never stopped believing in you. I stopped believing in myself, babe. I didn't think I could do it anymore. I didn't think that I could be strong enough. I'd already asked myself numerous times why I wasn't enough to keep you sober I never wanted her to ask herself that same question." She finally admitted to what she had been holding onto for thirteen years. He was right the blame for the situation wasn't on him it was on her.

"You're the strongest person that I know and I did that to you. I made you doubt yourself and me in the process. I never meant for it to be like that. I became the one person that I despise the most in this world, my father." He sighed loudly.

"Deacon, you're not your father. Jesus Christ, babe, I'm so sorry. I should have just told you about her. That's the thing I regret the most in this world. I will go to my grave regretting that I hurt two of the people I love the most. This is exactly what I didn't want to do, but I did it anyway." She broke down crying.

Deacon pulled her into his arms. "Come here, baby. I won't tell you that it's ok 'cause it's not, but it's gonna be ok. I won't even say that I forgive you 'cause I haven't yet, but I get closer everyday. It's in the past and we can't change that, but we can move forward as a family. That's what I want more than anythin'."

Rayna cried into his chest and nodded her head. "I want that too. And if it helps any I haven't forgiven myself either. I didn't just do this to you and Maddie I did it to myself too. I kept us from being a family like we always should have been."

"Baby, it ain't all on you. I drove you to it. I will accept my share of the blame. I know that I did wrong and I put you through more than any person should be put through for someone they love. I won't ever forgive myself for makin' you doubt yourself. You've always been so much stronger than everyone else and I destroyed your confidence." He kissed her head.

"Can we just agree to move on together and make it work from here?" She looked up at him.

"I'm in if you are." He agreed.

"I'm in, babe." She didn't hesitate.

"I was hopin' you'd say that." He smiled down at her.

"Now, that we've discussed that. There is something else that we need to talk about." She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"What's that?" He could tell he wasn't going to like where this conversation was going.

"I need to get maternity clothes and get of your jeans and t-shirts. The thing is the minute I do that the press is gonna be all over it. So, we are gonna have to issue a statement. I know that I like to keep our private life private and so do you, but this has to be done. That way they will leave us alone." She reasoned with him.

"Ok, I can live with that, but we have to find a way for me to be Maddie's daddy in public too. I'm so sick of pretendin' that she's not mine, Ray. Like I told you I'm so proud of her and I want to be able to show that to the world. I don't wanna just be Uncle Deacon or her guitar teacher." He put his arms around her waist.

"I told you that we will find a way to make it happen. As much as you don't like it I will have to give Teddy a head's up first." She replied.

"I think I can learn to live with that. Or even better how 'bout this? It's none of anyone's damn business. If they start askin' questions we answer them, but no one else matters in this situation." He suggested.

"I really love the way you think sometimes. I have an image to protect and I know you don't wanna air our dirty laundry to the world." She could see his point, but it wasn't quite that simple.

"We will figure it out we always do. We do our best together." He kissed her lips gently.

"I'm not gonna argue with that." She leaned her forehead against his. "Speaking of our best work. Your son is hungry did you plan on feeding us?"

He chuckled softly. "That was the plan. I have chili on the stove I've just been waitin' on you like always."

"I don't hear you complaining too much about it you must like it." She teased him.

"Darlin', you are always more than worth the wait." He stole another kiss from her and smiled against her lips.

A/N: Here is the next chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Until next time please review.