Rayna is waiting in the arrivals hall when Deacon walks through the doors holding Scarlett's hand and carrying her pink suitcase. He's lent Rayna his truck so she could drop him off at the airport yesterday and come back to pick them up today.
The moment Scarlett sees her, she screams. She lets go of Deacon's hand and runs into her arms.
"I'd say it's off to a good start," Rayna tells an amused Deacon.
It's a while before Scarlett agrees to remove her arms from around Rayna's waist. "Uncle Deacon said you would be here, but I thought it was a joke. What are you doing here?" she asks, point blank, the way seven-year-olds do.
"Well, I'm on vacation, and your uncle and I became... friends, so I thought it would be great to meet you."
If it had been a cartoon, Rayna believes this is the moment Scarlett's jaw would have dropped to the floor. "This. Is. So. Cool." She grabs Rayna's hand then and doesn't let go until they've all reached the parking lot. "Do you like to fish? You could come with us," she suggests, not waiting for an answer. "It's going to be the best week ever!" she squeals before climbing into the backseat of Deacon's truck.
Her uncle chuckles and closes the door behind her. He looks at Rayna as they get into the front seats. "Best week ever," he mimicks his niece, and she smiles.
"I'm sure it will be."
—
"Not too far, Scar!" Deacon shouts.
He and Rayna are sitting at the edge of the dock, keeping an eye on Scarlett who's standing on her paddle board and moving around on the lake.
It's a warm summer day, Rayna is wearing jean shorts and a white top, and Deacon's hand has been resting on her thigh the whole time they've been sitting there. It's been a week since they played The Landslide, and last night was the first one she didn't spend in his bed. During Scarlett's stay, he's letting his niece have his room and he's sleeping on the couch, so Rayna finds herself back at the guest house.
He runs his fingers on the inside of her thigh up to the hem of her shorts. "I missed you last night," he says.
"I missed you too." Like hell, if she's being honest. "But you're a great uncle, I love that." She smiles. "And now that you know Rayna Jaymes, I'm sure you're her coolest uncle too," she quips, and he laughs.
"Oh, yeah." He kisses her bare shoulder.
Rayna raises her aviators to the top of her head and squints at the sun. "Seriously, though, she's a great kid."
"She's the best. And to be honest, with her mom, she doesn't always have it easy."
"You haven't mentioned her dad, so I guess he's... not in the picture anymore?"
Deacon scoffs. "That asshole left before Scar was even born."
"She has you, and I think it's great."
He hesitates. "It's not always been the case. At the time she was born, I wasn't really... around."
"Well, you're here now." He seems pensive, so she runs a hand through his hair. "You're okay?" she asks, and he nods.
After that, they're quiet for a while.
"I think I wanna go for a swim," she announces to break the silence. She gets up to strip down to the bikini she's wearing under her shorts and top. As his gaze wanders over her, Deacon tells himself he must be a really, really great uncle.
Rayna sits back down and slips down into the water. She disappears under for a few seconds and when she resurfaces, she looks up at him, smiling. "You're comin', babe?"
—
A summer storm rolls through in the afternoon, so when Rayna and Deacon settle on the porch swing that evening, the smell of rain still lingers in the air. Scarlett is already asleep in her room, and even if the cabin's door is closed, they try not to speak too loud.
It's late, but Rayna is in no hurry to get back to the guest house.
"Can I ask you something, babe?"
"Of course."
"This morning, you said you weren't... around when Scarlett was born. What does that mean?"
Deacon glances at the cabin's door as if to make sure it's really closed and Scarlett can't hear.
"You remember you asked me if I had ever considered a career in music?" She nods. "Well, when I was eighteen, I left Natchez, moved to Nashville and lived there for a while. And things were going good, I even got myself an opening spot on Merle Haggard's tour."
"What happened?" she asks.
"To answer that, I need to tell you about how I grew up. My father... he was a drunk. And a mean one. When he was drinking, he got violent with my mom, with my sister, with me."
"Deacon," she whispers, and she tries not to cry because it's his story, the pain is his, but she feels like to.
"All the while I was in Nashville, my sister kept begging me to come back to Natchez, she claimed things had gotten even worse between my parents since both of us had moved out." He pauses. "But I didn't. And one night, when I was on tour with Merle, my father, he... beat my mom to death."
Rayna remembers when she'd told him about her own dad. He'd said he knew how she felt, and at the moment, she'd thought it's just something people say. Now she realizes he does know how she feels.
"I blamed myself. I felt like it was my fault, I should never have left, and... for a whole year after that, I think I tried to drink myself to death."
She holds him then while he tells her how he found help, how he went to rehab and overcame this chapter of his life. She can't even begin to imagine what he went through.
He'd been anxious to share this part of his past with her. He'd been anxious her view of him would change. But as they keep talking, he understands it's not the case.
If anything, it only brings them closer.
—
The rest of the week goes by in a blur.
Scarlett looks like she's having so much fun, Rayna now believes the girl was right when she said it would be the best week ever.
Rayna has to promise her at least ten times they will see each other again, and when Scarlett breaks down crying during their goodbyes, Rayna fights hard not to cry herself.
—
They don't make it to the bed, but it's a miracle they even make it to the cabin. All she's been able to think about on the way back from the airport is this.
They're lying naked on his living room's carpet, sweaty and happy, and she props herself up on one elbow. "There's something I'd meant to talk to you about." She traces the outline of his bicep with her finger. "I have to go back to Nashville for a few days. There's this celebration at the Opry for Watty, and even if I won't sing, I can't miss it. Well, I don't want to miss it."
"Oh, okay," he says. He smirks. "I'm sure we'll find a way to make up for lost time when you get back."
She chuckles at that, but that's not what she'd meant. "Actually, I was thinking... would you like to come with me?"
"To Nashville?"
"Well, that's where the Opry is, so yeah," she confirms, amused. She clears her throat. "You could meet my sister and my friends, see where I live. Well, if you want to."
"Can I think about it?"
"Oh... of course." She tries to hide her disappointment.
A second later, though, he grins. "Alright, I've thought about it, I'm coming."
She smacks him on the arm. "Idiot," she complains, and he bursts out laughing.
He drags her to him, and she pretends to resist for all of two seconds before she finds herself lying on top of him, kissing him, and she thinks how there's no way she's going to Nashville without him because there's no way she's spending one more night away from him.
—
He's ten minutes late, and she tells herself it's alright, they've got enough time, it's a small airport after all.
He's twenty minutes late, and she keeps glancing at the road, expecting to see his truck any minute. She tries to call him, but he doesn't answer. That means he's not at the cabin and probably on his way, so that's a good thing, right?
He's thirty minutes late, and she starts to worry.
She leaves her suitcase outside and goes back inside the guest house. Beth suggests they drive to his cabin, there's only one road, they will meet him coming the other way. They don't, and when they get to the cabin, neither Deacon nor his truck are anywhere to be found.
Worry turns to panic for Rayna, and Beth drives them back to the guest house where she can call people, ask them if they've seen or heard from Deacon this morning.
No one has.
Beth tells Rayna if she leaves for the airport right now, she might still have a chance to catch her flight, but Rayna couldn't care less. There's no way she's leaving without Deacon. All that matters is to find him. Beth tries to be optimistic, maybe Deacon got busy with something and forgot what day it was. Rayna doesn't buy it.
Something must have happened.
Her mind jumps to the worst-case scenarios, and she has to sit down and remember to breathe. Panic is contagious, and now even Beth admits it's unusual for Deacon not to show up when he's supposed to.
The two women are in the midst of trying to come up with a plan of action when the phone rings. It's one of the friends Beth called earlier, her husband came back from his morning run, and he thinks he's seen Deacon fishing in Sialia Cove.
Ranya knows where it is, so Beth gives her her keys. She doesn't walk to the car, she runs.
She does indeed find Deacon where Beth's friend told them she would. He's standing near the water, fishing pole in hand.
"Hey," he says when he spots her.
Rayna, for her part, is speechless. She's spent the last hour worried sick, convinced he'd been in some kind of horrible accident. She'd already started to imagine they would find him down a ravine somewhere in the woods, because these last few weeks have been too good to be true, so of course something bad would happen.
But he's here. Alive. Unharmed. Just... fishing.
"You were supposed to come pick me up this morning, we had a flight to Nashville to catch, did you... forget?"
"No."
"What happened?"
"I realized I can't just leave like that and go away for a few days on a whim."
Rayna is lost. "So, nothing happened, you just... changed your mind?"
"Yeah."
"And you didn't think it would be a good idea to tell me?"
"I thought when you would realize I wasn't coming, you would just leave."
"I would just—" She can't even say it. She isn't worried anymore, but she is pissed. Ten different kinds of pissed. "Well, I guess now that I know you're not in any kind of danger, but you're only being a complete jackass, I can indeed just leave."
She huffs and starts to walk away, but at the last second, he grabs her hand.
"Wait," he pleads. When she turns back around, she can see jackass Deacon is gone, and it's the Deacon she knows again. "That's not... that's not what happened."
—
TBC
A/N: I wanted to THANK YOU ALL so much for your sweet reviews.