Oh my goodness, I am so sorry about the long wait between chapters. All the usual mundane real life things have kept me busy and on top of that Season 5 happened! Think we all know what I'm referring too...I'm still dealing with that! To make up for the delay, you get 3 chapters for the price of 1! Enjoy...and hopefully it won't be such a long time to wait for the next chapter :-)

Rayna shook her head as she cursed Deacon. It was his fault that she had look like a fool in front of Markus. Markus had looked like she was crazy as she drew the line in the sand.

"Damn you Deacon" Rayna squeezed the steering wheel as she imagined throttling Deacon and his stupid jealously. This was not a new revelation to her, he had always been prone to overreaction whenever he perceived a man getting too close to her. Rayna gave a strangled laugh as she remembered a time when Deacon was suspicious of Luke, turned out he was correct that time. But there was no way he was correct this time. The way Markus looked at her early convinced her that Deacon was allowing his insecurities to cloud his judgment. She knew that he was angry about how things had played out at the studio but she was gobsmacked at the accusation he had thrown at her feet.

Two hours earlier:

Rayna winced as she opened the back door, she could hear Deacon slamming the kitchen cupboard doors. Slowly entering, she tried to catch his eye to gauge the level of his anger but he was too wrapped up in his mood to notice her. Putting her bag on the bench, she leaned against it as she waited for him to acknowledge her. When he had finally run out of stream, he placed his hands down onto the bench and took a deep breath. Turning his head towards her, he gave her a weak smile.

"Hey, did you want to talk about what happened?"

Leaning his hip against the bench, Deacon crossed his arms in front of him and gave her a derisive laugh

"What, you choosing his version over mine?"

"Babe, I didn't choose his version over yours"

Deacon scoffed at this.

"Come on you know what I'm dealing with here, and you know better than most that an artist sometimes has to make adjustments"

"What I know is that he wants to sleep with you!"

Rayna blinked unbelieving at him, before in a stunned voice she asked,

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on Ray! All the times he needs you there, all this text back and forth"

"All that…that is work related"

Shaking his head at her, "Don't kid yourself"

Frowning at him, Rayna was puzzled at his attitude. She thought he had liked Markus, well right up to when he had decided to change his lyrics.

"Where is, this coming from?"

"No guy just texts with some woman he doesn't want to sleep with. More to the point some woman he thinks he might have a pretty good shot with sleeping with."

Rayna looked at Deacon in disbelief. She had thought they had moved passed Deacon feeling jealous of any man she worked closely with. Shaking her head at him, Rayna could feel her own anger rising in her. Rayna knew that the Deacon of the past was a jealous man, but she had thought that now that their future was secure he would have moved passed it. She would never have predicted this behaviour from him, especially because he knew how much they had gone through to get to this point. She certainly could understand and expect this type of behaviour from both Teddy and Luke over Deacon, but Deacon knew that there was no one else for her. She would never cheat on him.

"I beg your pardon. "

"He is out of line"

"No, you're out of line"

"He is! I'm just waiting to find out when the hell you're going to tell him that"

Before Rayna could argue with him, he had grabbed his car keys and stormed out of the house. Rayna gave a frustrated scream as she listened to Deacon drive away. Spinning around, her eyes darted across the kitchen bench looking for something to take her rising anger out on. She grabbed an apple and threw it across the room. The thud it made as it hit the wall did little to alleviate her aggravation. Kicking the cabinet door, she viciously tore off some paper towel to clean the mess up. Muttering under her breath, she cursed Deacon and his jealously until she finally ran out of steam. Rubbing her hand over her eyes, she sighed to herself. She knew Deacon was overreacting but she also knew that he wouldn't be able to let this issue go, no matter how misguided his belief was.

The buzzing of her phone ceased any further thought of Deacon and his crazy theory, though her moment of reprieve was short lived. Swearing out loud, she contemplated how her day had suddenly got so bad. Reading the text, she groaned as she realised that she could no longer afford to delay talking to Markus.

"Your man seemed pissed…", rolling her eyes at the understatement of the century. Rayna knew that she needed to go talk to Markus, if for nothing else than to assure Deacon that his jealously was misguided.

Driving over to Markus' Rayna's stomach was in knots. It had been such a long time since she had had to have this conversation with anyone. In fact, the last time she seriously had to sit down and lay her feelings on the line was with Deacon. It was shortly after he had completed rehab for the fifth time, Teddy had threatened to leave her if she took Deacon back in her band. Rayna could still feel the hurt she felt that day knowing that she had to add another lie to the growing list of lies she was telling Deacon. Not only was she withholding the truth about her daughter from him, she was about to give the performance of her life, convincing him that she no longer loved him and that if he wanted back in her band it was purely on a professional basis. She had risked her marriage that day for him. She knew that Teddy was serious about leaving her, but she also knew that she needed Deacon in her life. Not only for herself but she wanted their daughter to at least have her father around, even if neither of them knew of their connection. Rayna smile sadly to herself as she realised that on that day, she had not only convinced the two men in her life to believe the web of lies she spun but she had convinced herself that those earnestly whispered words would protect her.