Deacon is still sound asleep next to her when Rayna opens her eyes.

She's got the biggest grin plastered on her face, and Tandy would say she might want to stop smiling like this or she'll get stuck.

She feels the urge to reach for Deacon and wake him up, but she decides against it. Maybe she could use a minute to process last night. To process last week.

She has no idea what time it is as there's no clock in the room, but judging by the sunlight filtering through the curtains, it must be well into morning already. She tries to be quiet as she gets out of bed and picks up Deacon's shirt off the floor. She puts it on before she slips out of the room.

She's determined not to let anything ruin her morning, and so she refrains from glancing outside on her way to the kitchen. She doesn't need to know if the front gate is still besieged.

Her phone is lying on the kitchen counter where she'd left it last night. She'd put it on silent mode all evening, and when she checks, she sees she has forty-two missed calls.

Good grief.

She goes through the list; a lot of numbers she doesn't recognize, Marshall's office, Bucky, Tandy, and then, Lamar. She finds it odd that her dad hasn't shown up at her house yet to lecture her about calling off the wedding. She knows he had taken a liking to Luke. It was surprising considering Lamar's disregard for country musicians in general, but Luke has always been a businessman first and an artist second, so in a way it made sense.

There's a name at the bottom of the list, then, that she decides to call back. She puts the phone on speaker as she gets the carton of orange juice out of the fridge and pours herself a glass.

"Hey, my little songbird. How are you doing?"

"I'm okay, Watty, you don't need to worry, really."

Would you like me to come over?"

"No!" she lets out, a little too fast and a little too loud. She winces, silently cursing herself. "It's just... I'd rather be alone at the moment."

He doesn't insist, he only asks if there's anything he can do. She thanks him, but, really, she's just going to let all this pass over. He reminds her he's just a call away if she needs him, and they say their goodbyes. There's a pause, and he adds, "Oh, and say hi to Deacon for me," before he hangs up.

Of course Watty would know. What was she expecting.

"Well, hi back then," she hears, and when she turns around, she finds Deacon in boxers and a t-shirt, his shoulder resting against the brick pillar of the kitchen's doorway.

His smile mirrors the one she was sporting when she woke up. He looks every shade of handsome to freaking hot, and who was she kidding, she doesn't need time to process last night, what she needs is more of last night.

He walks toward her, slides his arms around her waist, pulling her to him.

"You, Rayna Jaymes, are a thief," he declares. She raises an eyebrow. "First the covers, now my shirt—"

"I did not steal the covers," she protests, trying to sound indignant but only coming off as highly amused.

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

They playfully bicker back and forth for a few seconds before he shuts her up with a kiss. She'd say it's cheating, but in this case, she wholeheartedly embraces defeat.

"Hey."

"Hey."

He points at the phone. "I'm guessing from the end of your call that Watty is onto us?"

"It's hard to keep a secret from Watty."

He hesitates. "Do you... want to keep this a secret?"

"From the people close to us? No. I wish we could have kept it from going public for a little while, though, yeah. But it's too late anyway, there's no stopping the rumour now. Thing is... I can deal with this mess, I didn't want to drag you into it."

"I don't care about any of that," he says, and she can see he means it, but she's not sure he realizes what it entails, and how much his current life will be upended. "I know what I want," he adds, and the way he looks down at her makes it very clear.

She's not sure she will let him leave this house ever again.

"Breaskfast?" she asks. He nods. "In a minute," she whispers, pulling him back for a kiss.

"Didn't you say you were going to make breakfast?"

"I said in a minute," she points out. She rolls over, her head landing on his chest.

He smiles. "Oh, right."

To the best of her recollection, he was the one who'd dragged her back to the bedroom. Not that she'd had any complaint. "Want us to move back to the kitchen?" she asks.

"In a minute," he says, and they both laugh at that. He kisses the top of her head, and his fingers brushes against her lower back. "Baby," he continues in that low, quintessential Deacon Claybourne's voice that she now believes could persuade her to do pretty much anything, "I was thinking we—"

Before he can finish, though, his phone starts to ring on the nightstand.

He groans, annoyed, and he stretches out his arm to get it. She doesn't catch the name on the screen, but Deacon frowns when he sees it. He picks up, and soon after, his face changes.

He jumps out of bed and tucks his phone between his head and shoulder. "No, no, no... thank you... I'm on my way," he says, gathering his clothes off the floor and putting them on in a rush. He grabs the phone again and hangs up.

"Deacon, what's going on?"

He's almost fully dressed now. "I have to go."

"Deac—"

He hops out of the room while putting his socks on.

And just like that, he's gone.

"Oh, good, you're not dead."

Tandy barges into the house, not bothering to ask if it's a good time. She takes her coat and scarf off before she goes straight to the kitchen. She gets a chocolate cake out of the bag she's holding and puts it on the counter.

"What are you doing here?" Rayna asks.

"You're not answering my calls and you're ignoring my texts."

"I know, Tandy, I'm sorry."

Rayna sits down on a stool and takes a closer peek at the cake. It looks like something Tandy wouldn't even think of buying under normal circumstances. She must have been really worried.

Her sister wanders around the kitchen, grabbing two plates, mugs, spoons and a knife before she prepares tea. They move everything to the living room and settle on the couch.

"I didn't like the idea of you being alone," Tandy sighs.

Rayna takes a bite of the cake, and damn, it's good. It only occurs to her now that it's 2pm and she has skipped lunch. Her mind has been elsewhere.

"I wasn't alone. Deacon was here until a few hours ago."

Tandy's curiosity perks up. "Deacon was here?"

"He came by last night."

"And he was still here this morning?"

"Yeah." She wonders how many questions Tandy can come up with until she gets to the point. Rayna could cut to the chase too, but it's more fun to make her sister work for it.

"So he spent the night here?"

"Yeah."

"In the... guest room?"

Rayna clears her throat. "Yeah." Well, it's not a lie. Tandy keeps staring at her, far from convinced. "And it's, uh, possible I spent the night there with him."

She watches Tandy's jaw drop to the floor. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah." The grin, the one she's quite getting used to now, is back.

"How was it?"

"It was great. It was great."

"How is it today?"

"It was great... until Deacon got a call and had to leave. And I have no idea why. He won't answer his phone or return my texts."

"Well, now you know how it feels."

"I'm serious, Tandy."

"I know, I'm sorry. Do you think it was... an excuse to leave?"

Rayna gotta love her sister for always coming up with the worst-case scenarios. "No, it wasn't like that. I'm sure something happenend."

"Then look at it this way, if it was bad, he would have called."

Rayna sighs. "I hope you're right."

When Tandy leaves two hours later, there's nothing left of the chocolate cake and Deacon still hasn't called.

She needs to keep her mind occupied, and so she turns the TV on.

First thing she comes across is a Christmas movie. Of course. With all that's been happening, she'd almost forgotten it will be Christmas next week. She switches to the next channel. Another Christmas movie. Switch. Yet another Christmas movie. Gee. Switch. Country stars Luke Wheeler and Rayna Jaymes announced yesterday they—

She turns the TV off.

Great.

She grabs her phone, trying to decide if there's anyone from her never-ending list of missed calls she might want to reach back. At this point, she would be ready to have a lengthy conversation with Lamar if it could make her stop thinking about Deacon.

She's going through the list again when the screen brightens up and Deacon's name appears.

She picks up at lightning speed. "Hey, you're alright?"

"Yeah, I am. I'm sorry I'm only calling you back now."

"It's okay," she lies.

"I'm home with Scarlett. It was her school calling this morning, a reporter managed to approach her during recess and tried to ask questions about us."

Rayna had run a few scenarios in her mind, but she couldn't possibly have seen this one coming. "What the hell."

"I know." There's a pause. "Rayna, I'm sorry I left like that. I probably overreacted, and—"

"No, Deacon, you don't need apologize," she assures him, and this time, it's not a lie. She's the one who's sorry. She feels responsible. "How is Scarlett doing?"

"She dealt with it a lot better than I did. She insists she's fine. She says she wasn't afraid, and that she was ready to use some moves she'd learned in karate class," he explains, and he chuckles at that.

Rayna smiles. "My money would have been on Scarlett."

"Oh, yeah. Honestly, I think she was just too happy to be asked about... us, you know."

"She was?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe you two could... drop by tomorrow, after Scarlett gets out of school?" she asks, and she immediately wonders if she shouldn't have, if he'll think it's too soon and she has crossed some sort of implicit line.

"We could do that," he says, to her greatest relief.

"I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"You will."

TBC