Maddie and Rayna were mostly quiet during the ride home from Deacon's. It wasn't until they were nearly home that Rayna finally asked her why she thought she wouldn't be able to spend time with Deacon anymore. Maddie didn't say anything at first, but then turned to look at her mom, her eyes steely. "Well, even though you let me do this, you never seem like you're happy about it. I know you didn't really want me to spend the weekend with him, so…"

Rayna frowned. "I don't know why you would think that, Maddie. I went to bat for you with your dad."

"Because you don't seem to want to let me say he's my dad. It's like you want me to pretend like he's not really my dad."

"Maddie, that's not true. At least, that's not my intention. But it's still very new."

"Whatever." Maddie crossed her arms and turned away, looking out the window.

Rayna looked over at Maddie, worry in her eyes. Her oldest daughter had always been a contradiction, quiet and unassuming, but fiercely passionate about things that were important to her. Like Deacon. Usually she was pretty even-keeled, but the paternity reveal had knocked her off-center. She was all over the place with her emotions. Some days, Rayna felt the closeness she and Maddie had always had. But so many days were full of fights and arguments and Maddie closing herself off. They were all on edge and she was feeling frustrated at her inability to help her daughter through this. The only one Maddie seemed to have a connection to was Deacon and Rayna wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

When they got home, Maddie jumped out of the car before Rayna had even turned it off. Rayna opened her door. "Maddie, I want to talk to you!" she called out. Maddie kept walking without even acknowledging her. "Maddie!" she shouted after her. Maddie didn't stop. Rayna turned off the car and got out, hurrying after her. When she got in the house, she slammed her purse down on the counter and ran up the stairs. She walked in Maddie's room. "Maddie, don't you run off from me," she said sternly.

Maddie turned and rolled her eyes. "What?" she said angrily.

"I want to talk to you."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you."

Rayna walked over to stand in front of her daughter. "I don't really care. You can listen then." Maddie narrowed her eyes and turned away. Rayna put her hands on her hips and sighed with exasperation. "Maddie, I just want you to take things slow. There's no need to rush this."

Maddie turned back and looked at Rayna as though she'd lost her mind. "Mom, you waited thirteen years to let me know about my real dad. I think if we want to move things faster, that's our decision. I have a lot of questions and I want some answers. And I'm tired of pretending like he's just 'Uncle Deacon' to everybody else. He's not!"

"I know that, Maddie, but you don't have to let the whole world know that. At least not right now."

Maddie threw her arms up and looked up at the ceiling, then back at her mom. "Why not? What are we waiting for? For you to figure out how you're going to spin this?"

Rayna looked at her angrily. "No, of course not. I want to help you."

Maddie let out an exaggerated sigh. "Thanks, Mom, but no," she said sarcastically. "I'm not waiting anymore. I want people to know who I am."

Rayna felt frantic. She didn't want Maddie to get hurt and was afraid her daughter would make some foolish error in her haste to expose the secret. "Maddie, please," she pleaded. "If this is really what you want, let me help you do this the right way. Will you let me? Please?"

Maddie sighed. "I guess."

Rayna felt a sense of relief, but she knew it wouldn't last. But she'd bought herself at least a little time, she thought. "Let me get with Bucky and we'll work out how to do this. Okay?"

Maddie nodded and turned away. Rayna walked up to her and put her arms around her. Maddie tensed up, but after a moment she relaxed. "This is important to me, Mom," she said softly. "It's who I am."

"I know, sweet girl. I know," Rayna said soothingly.

"Mom! I lost another tooth!" Daphne excitedly exclaimed from the doorway.

Rayna turned around and gave her younger daughter her best smile. "I thought it was hardly loose this morning," she said.

"It was, but I kept wiggling it so it would come out."

"You just want money. And you think Mama's easy," she said teasingly.

Daphne put on her innocent face and shook her head. "No, that's not it at all," she said solemnly.

Rayna laughed. "Well, you girls need to work on homework. I'll get dinner ready." She turned back to look at Maddie. "Maddie, we can talk more tonight, okay?"

Maddie nodded. "Okay," she said and then walked into her closet to change clothes. When she walked back out, Daphne was sitting on her bed, swinging her legs. Maddie rolled her eyes. "What?"

"Why was Mom shouting at you?"

Maddie rolled her eyes. "None of your business."

"It was about Deacon, wasn't it? You're so moody these days, now that you're Deacon's daughter."

"What are you talking about? That's ridiculous."

"No, it's not. You're all drama queen now." She hopped off the bed and wrung her hands together. "'I'm all misunderstood. Because I have a new daddy. I wanna be Maddie Claybourne now,'" she said in a whiny voice.

Maddie scowled at her sister. "I do not sound like that."

Daphne nodded. "Yes, you do. You are so not fun anymore. You're all about being dramatic." She rolled her eyes and tossed her head. "It's getting old, Maddie."

"Get out of here, you little pipsqueak. You have no idea what my life is like these days."

Daphne sighed dramatically. "Thank goodness," she said as she walked out of Maddie's room.

Later that night, Daphne was up in her room, after declaring that she needed to be in a "drama-free zone". Maddie rolled her eyes again just thinking about that. Daphne was certainly not one to talk about drama-free. Her mom had invited her to sit with her on the couch in the den. She had hesitated a moment, but then decided to just go with it. She'd curled up next to her and laid her hand in her mom's lap. Her mom took her hand and held it gently and it made Maddie feel warm and safe, the way she had when she was little. She really didn't like fighting with her mom, but ever since she'd found out Deacon was her dad, she had found her emotions getting out of control more often. There was so much she wanted to know, but if she thought about it enough, it would make her so angry with her mom for keeping that from her. But she didn't want to be angry tonight. There was more to learn.

"Why don't you want to talk much about him?" she asked finally.

Rayna sighed and ran her free hand over Maddie's hair, smoothing it. "It's really not that I don't want to talk about him, Maddie," she said. "But everything is so complicated and there's so much that's just not good and I don't want to hurt you."

"But it hurts me more that you keep things from me, Mom. Don't you get that?"

"Yeah, I guess." She leaned down and lightly kissed her daughter's head. "Ask me whatever you want, Maddie, and I'll try to answer as best I can. I promise."

"When did you know that I was Deacon's?"

Rayna took in a sharp breath. "For sure, it was after you were born. You know we did a paternity test, so that's when it was official. But I knew right away. There was no way you were anyone's but Deacon's." She thought about that. As soon as she'd known she was pregnant, she'd known the baby was Deacon's. Teddy always used a condom and, after she'd left Deacon at the cabin that next day, she'd pushed Teddy away for a couple of weeks in her grief over all that had happened.

"Did you think about it a lot? I mean, while you were pregnant?"

Rayna smiled wryly. Maddie really knew how to get to the heart of things. "Every day."

Maddie turned her head to look up at her mom. "Were you happy about it?"

Rayna smiled. "You know, I was happy and sad at the same time."

Maddie scrunched up her face. "Why?"

Rayna looked away for a moment, then back at her daughter. "I was happy that I was having a baby. But I was sad that Deacon was having such a hard time with his life and couldn't be a part of it."

Maddie thought about that for a moment. "So you decided to marry Dad," she said, her face a little sad.

Rayna nodded. "I did. Maddie, I wanted only the best for you. I was really afraid that Deacon wouldn't be able to handle that, that he wouldn't be able to be there for us the way we needed. I know that my decision has caused you pain now and I'm so very sorry for that. I'm sorry that our choices caused you even a moment of pain. We really thought we were doing what was best for you, because we loved you so much."

"But did you think it could stay a secret forever?"

Rayna felt tears prick her eyes and she had to breathe in deeply. "I honestly never thought that far ahead. I went day by day, just doing the best I could a day at a time."

Every time her mom talked about doing what was best for her, it made Maddie feel frustrated and angry. But since her mom had invited questions, she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. "Did you ever think about telling him? Deacon, I mean."

Rayna had felt Maddie tense up and then slowly relax. She was sorry that all of this made her daughter so angry. At her. She had every right to be, though, Rayna knew that. Reliving all of this was so hard, so much harder than she had ever imagined it might be, back in the days when she actually imagined it at all. She took a deep breath. "Yes, I did think about it, Maddie. But, uh, Deacon was in rehab when I was pregnant. And when he got home, I just wanted him to get better and it seemed like if there were fewer complications for him, he had a better chance."

"But he was sober for so long. Why didn't you tell him later?"

Rayna felt a lump in her throat. Why did she not tell him? Because of her promise to Teddy. Because she was afraid. Because she knew something like what actually happened could happen and she couldn't risk it. She closed her eyes. Her heart hurt. "I don't know, Maddie," she said brokenly. "I guess as time went on, I didn't know how, without hurting him."

"I don't understand why he didn't guess it in the first place. Why didn't he think I might have been his?"

Rayna felt like she'd been kicked in the gut. This was the question she'd hoped Maddie would never ask. She wasn't quite sure what to say that would satisfy her daughter. Tears threatened. She felt like throwing up.

"Mom?" Maddie asked, her tone impatient.

"Um, a lot was going on then for him, Maddie. And I was dating your dad then. So, I guess he just assumed…"

Maddie rolled that around in her head. Something didn't seem right about that answer, but she couldn't come up with a reason that made sense. She felt like there was more, but her instincts said this might be one of those things that Talia and Juliette had told her she might not want to know, so she decided to let it go. For now.

"Why did you break up with him?" she asked then. "I mean, before you got married."

Rayna sighed. "I know that you know Deacon had a lot of problems, with drinking, when we were together. I know you've read about it and we've talked a little. It was a hard life. It takes a lot out of you and I was just…tired. I thought that maybe he'd get better if we weren't together, so that's what I did."

Maddie looked down. "Did you ever miss him?" she asked softly.

Rayna hugged her daughter close. "Yes. I did. A lot. But I had to move on." She took a deep breath as she felt all the old feelings bubbling up. "I know I keep telling you it was complicated, but it was. When it was good, it was absolutely the most wonderful time of my life. But when it wasn't, well, it just wasn't." She didn't really want to tell her daughter how Deacon destroyed her. Or how hard it was, as the years went by and she saw him getting stronger all the time, not to rush back into his arms again. She kissed the top of Maddie's head. "I'm sorry that it's not the fairy tale story you'd like it to be. I wish it had been, but it's just not. There were parts of it that were amazing, but there were also parts that were sad and hard and painful. And I needed for you to have something that would be stable. I needed that. And your dad gave us both that, for a long time."

Maddie sighed deeply. She still felt like there was so much she didn't know. It was, actually, like her mom said, complicated. For a moment she was almost envious of Daphne, who didn't have any of this craziness to deal with. At the same time, when she thought about being the daughter of Rayna Jaymes and Deacon Claybourne, she felt a sense of pride that she came from what Juliette had called "country royalty." She felt special and unique and she kind of liked it. So for the time being, she was satisfied to sit and be close with her mom and just drink in feeling like she was part of something pretty amazing.

Megan walked in to the kitchen, enticed by the smell of bacon. She smiled as she saw Deacon busy with the eggs. She walked up behind him and, leaning against his back, she wrapped her arms around him, running her hands up and down his chest. He leaned back into her and turned his head slightly. "Morning," he said with a big grin.

"Good morning," she said. "That smells wonderful."

"Do you have time to eat?"

"I do." She laughed softly. "You spoil me."

He chuckled. "Just remember that this is probably the best thing I make. I'm not really much of a cook."

She let him go and moved to lean back against the counter next to the stove, watching him with a smile on her face. He was so different from men she usually dated, from her husband. He was ruggedly handsome, a simple man in many ways, although incredibly layered and complex, as she'd come to know. "What's on your agenda today?" she asked.

He finished up the eggs and dished them onto plates. "I've got a meeting at my label, then rehearsal. Then I'm going to meet up with Scarlett later to work with her on some music." He picked up the plates and carried them to the kitchen table, Megan following behind. "What about you?"

"Depositions this morning and legal briefs this afternoon." She smiled as Deacon shook his head. "Don't be jealous."

He smiled a crooked smile. "Oh, no chance of that. That sounds painfully boring."

She scrunched up her face and swatted at his arm as she sat. "Stop it. I love what I do."

He laughed. "I know you do. And I'm glad there are people like you that like to do that boring legal stuff." He poured them both coffee and set the mugs at their places before sitting down himself.

Megan eyed him carefully. "You seemed restless last night. Did you have something on your mind?"

He shrugged and frowned. "Not really," he said. He took a sip of coffee, then put down his mug and looked down at his plate. He looked back up at her. "Maybe."

She frowned with concern. "Tell me. Is it something I could help with?"

He nodded. "Actually, maybe you could." He worked his lip for a moment, then said, "If I wanted to be Maddie's father, legally, what would that involve?"

Megan sat back and raised her eyebrows. He'd mentioned this once before in a fit of anger towards Teddy Conrad, but had not brought it up again since he'd started having regular visits with his daughter. "What prompted this?" she asked.

"I think Maddie wants people to know she's my daughter. And, uh, I'd kind of like that too."

"Wow. What does Rayna say about this?"

Deacon scowled. "What difference does that make? What would it take?"

Megan considered that. She wasn't sure exactly how she felt about Deacon's interest in establishing paternity, but she answered him anyway. "Well, since Rayna was married to Teddy when Maddie was born, he is her legal father. You could have a paternity test done to establish that you're her biological father, but typically Teddy would need to give consent to have you declared her legal father. If he won't, you could take him to court and force him to."

Deacon considered that. "I'm pretty sure he isn't going to just hand her over," he said gruffly.

Megan shook her head. "Probably not. And how would Rayna feel about it? I know you don't think it makes a difference, but she is Maddie's mother and she does have a say."

Deacon shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't even talked to her about it." He was silent for a moment. "She's told me I'm Maddie's father and that doesn't seem to be in question. So I guess I wouldn't have to go this legal route. But I would like to be able to say Maddie is my daughter."

Megan just nodded. She felt a cold chill run through her. Once she and Deacon had gotten more serious, she'd asked some questions about him and his relationship with Rayna Jaymes. Based on everything she'd heard and read, she knew he had a very strong connection to Rayna, and not just because they shared a daughter. Their relationship had been passionate and all-consuming and it had made her more than a little nervous. Right now the relationship between Deacon and Rayna was strained, but the few times she'd seen them around each other, she'd sensed that the connection was still there, regardless of whether either of them wanted to acknowledge it. And the fact that they would always be connected through Maddie made her wonder if it was only a matter of time before they got past the awkwardness and found each other again.

She didn't like the thought of it, but she also wondered whether she'd have any choice in it.