This is a long chapter but I think it was necessary for the story. Thank you all for you continued comments and support.

Chapter 12

3 days later

Deacon looked at Rayna, noticing how beautiful she was looking out the window. He was still surprised she wanted to come back to Nashville for the 2 day break. Even when the girls were younger, she rarely went home on those two or three day breaks. That was when they worked on fixing problems with the show, when she worked on new material, did interviews and promos for radio shows and photo shoots for magazines. Plus it allowed her to rest her vocal cords. The pilot came over the small cabin, announcing they were preparing for landing.

He asked if she was okay, after all she'd been acting really weird since Teddy came to visit them on the road.

"Ray. Seriously. Even right now you're almost in tears." She tried to say something but he kept talking. "Look, we jumped into things pretty fast. I mean not counting the 12 plus years. If this is too much for you…"

Rayna shushed him by putting her finger against his lips. She looked at him and smiled when he gently kissed the pad of her finger.

"I love you. I want to be with you. I love being with you."

Deacon waited for her to finish. He could see the tears in her eyes and heard her voice crack. "I wanted to…I wanted to come to Nashville so we could go to the cabin. I want to …I have to talk to you about something. Just you and me."

Deacon let out a breath he'd been holding. That was not what I was expecting at all. "The cabin? You want us to go to the cabin?"

She nodded. He let out a smile, "Okay then. I think I can do that."

2 Hours Later

Rayna walked up the stairs, the wood giving a little due to age and weather. Her hands traced their way over the wooden rails as mind raced with a million different memories and a thousand different ways she could break this to him.

She hadn't been here since the night before she married Teddy. And before that, since the night Maddie had been conceived. She felt a since of déjà vu as she walked into the porch. The bigger swing hanging on the side had replaced the old one but the two rocking chairs were the same. The fishing poles were cramped over in the corner, like always. The same dead turkey that Deacon had shot fifteen years ago still was hanging from the ceiling. I always hated that thing. But we compromised, no dead fish but he got to keep the dead turkey.

The A-frame cabin still held the leather furniture it did twenty years ago. The rock fireplace still centered the living room. The kitchen was still small but had clearly had some updating. The downstairs bedroom had new comforters and was set up was completely different than the way it use to look. She casually walked up the stairs, smiling as she saw the walls were covered with his golden and platinum records. The steps were narrower than she remembered. The bedroom to the left was a clutter of guitars and boxes.

She stopped when she turned to the right. The view over the hill was still breathtaking, even though winter was still lingering in the mountains. She got lost for a moment in a haze of old memories. She heard Deacon coming up the stairs and felt him press his body against hers, wrapping his hands around her waist. He kissed her neck and gave her a husky chuckle.

"What?" she asked, feeling Deacon's erection against her backside.

"If I knew the reason you ran into the house so quickly was to get up to the bedroom, I would've left the bags in the car til later."

She smiled despite her worries and turned around. "You know I love you."

Deacon looked at her oddly, sensing something was going on. Instead of continuing her thought, she pressed her lower body against his. She began un-buttoning his shirt, desperate to hang onto him as long as possible.

6 hours later

Deacon walked back into the house with a grin on his face. He and Ray had made love upstairs, then downstairs in the swing. "Just to try out the new one and compare it to the old one."

Afterwards he'd realized they needed food for the night and driven down to the local grocery store to grab a few things to make it until tomorrow. He yelled Rayna's name twice before realizing she was sitting in one of the leather chairs, staring into the fireplace.

He pulled up the coffee table and looked at her, wondering what was going on.

"Ray, are you okay? You've been doing this a lot lately. Just staring at nothing."

She looked at his face for a minute, realizing it was time to just do this. "I want you know before I start that…I love you. I have loved you since I was nineteen. You walked through that side door and changed my life completely." He took her hand glided his fingers through hers. "And since then, I've always been two things: the girl who wants to sing music and the girl who is completely in love with you."

She could tell that she was unsettling him. So she breathed deeply and started at the beginning. "Deacon, do you remember when the last time I was here?"

Deacon thought for a minute then nodded, "Sure. It was right after you moved out. I called you at Tandy's house. You came up here and we got in that big fight."

Rayna nodded, "You were sober when you called but you were drunk by the time I got up here." They both took a moment of quiet remembering the screaming she did and the way he'd begged her to move back. Every time he'd beg her to come back, she begged him to stop drinking.

She broke through the quiet. "Actually I've been here since then, twice. The last time was after the rehearsal dinner, the night before my wedding." Deacon swallowed. He was clearly surprised by that. "I told myself if you were here, I would leave. But you weren't. So I sat on the porch for hours and tried to wrap my mind around everything." She felt her eyes fill with tears, remembering that night. "And then the time before that…was the night you left rehab."

Deacon's face showed confusion for a moment, clearly not understanding what she meant. She gave him a moment, allowing him to catch up.

"I never told you I left rehab. Only Coleman knew about that."

Rayna let out a sound somewhere before a laugh and a sob. "You did tell me. You called Tandy earlier that night and she told you…that I was seeing Teddy." He narrowed his eyes, not understanding what was going on. But his face showed that he did at least recall that part.

"I got back from my date with Teddy, if you can even call it that. Tandy was upstairs you called me from some dive bar like five miles from the center. It had some Irish name and they had those really ugly gingham tablecloths but in green. The whole restaurant looked like a giant picnic blanket. It was late by the time I got there but the bar was pretty full."

Deacon's eyes showed some sort of acknowledgement that he remembered that part. He waited for her to start back and once she gathered her thoughts she did.

"You were so drunk when I got there. You were drinking tequila and you know how you were when you were drinking like that."

Deacon didn't make a sound. Rayna could tell he was trying to conjure up memories of her from that night, memories of her from that night. Those memories weren't going to come, they never did when he blacked out. She continued, "There was some bachelor party going on, and they helped you to the car. I paid your bill. Luckily for my credit card you'd started out with cheap vodka." She got lost in her own memory for a second before continuing. "I didn't even notice you had a half a bottle of tequila with you until we were about ten miles down the road."

Deacon's eyes scrunched together. "I knew taking you back to rehab would be pointless. You were still drinking and they'd never let you back in like that. So you and I drove back to Nashville at midnight. We made good time. You passed at one point but woke up before I brought you here."

Deacon looked surprised, "You brought me here? I mean I woke up here but I thought…I just figured Coleman brought me here. When I woke up in the next day, Coleman was here making coffee."

Deacon asked why she never said anything.

She let out a slow breath. "I don't even know how to answer that question." The moments passed in silence as Rayna pulled an old sweat-shirt of Deacon's over her. "That night, you were so drunk. 'member how you use to obsess about things when you drank too much. You'd get stuck on something and not be able to let it go."

Deacon nodded, "Like when we'd write a chorus to a song and I'd just keep singing for hours and dissecting it for hours, constantly talking about it."

"Mhmmm"

"…or when you'd wear some sexy dress and I wouldn't be able to talk about all those things that dress made me want to do to you."

Rayna cracked a smile, "Yeah like that. But you couldn't quit talking about Teddy or me and Teddy. Or how you hated him and how I loved you, only you." She sat Deacon's jaw tighten. He wants to say something but he doesn't want to interrupt.

"You kept talking to me about Teddy and asking me questions about him. How many dates we went on, or what we talked about, or where I met him, or how much Daddy liked him." He heart beat faster, surprised Deacon still wasn't saying anything. He has to know at this point…he has to.

"I went to the kitchen to call Tandy and explain where I was. You found some old bottle of whiskey in one of your hiding places. You started asking me if Teddy made me feel like you made me feel."

Deacon swallowed hard, his face portraying calmness when she knew he wasn't anything but. "I um….I told you that I hadn't slept with him yet. I…um…you…took it as an invitation. You started asking me if he was as good of a kisser as you. If Teddy made me feel like you did."

Deacon softly admitted that "sounded like me. I was cocky as hell when I'd been drinking." He still held her hand in his, trying to comfort her in any small way.

Rayna smiled despite her mood, "You were cocky as hell back then, period. And then you kissed me. You were drunk and upset and I was never good at resisting you and it had been months since we'd been together."

Deacon let out a soft sigh, "That was one of my favorite qualities about you."

Silence clung in the air again, Rayna not sure anything else needed to be spoken. But a moment later Deacon asked for confirmation.

"So…we had sex that night?"

"Yeah, twice actually. I think you were trying to tell me in your own way tell me not to move on with Teddy. You were trying to show me that we belonged together in spite of everything. I was trying to hold onto you for a little longer."

He lifted an eyebrow. She knew his first question.

"Once on the couch and then once upstairs." He is trying to remember anything about that night.

"To be honest, any other man wouldn't have been able to …um….perform but I don't know if the alcohol hadn't hit you fully yet or…" She caught Deacon's smile. Seriously, he is going to be proud of this? "Anyways you eventually passed out on the bed, sideways and um…I came downstairs and just sat here."

She wiped a tear away and looked at him waiting for him to yell at her but instead he gave her a sad look. "Ray, I am so sorry."

"Sorry?"

"That I don't remember that. I never wanted that for you, for us. And I know that wasn't the only time I was..drunk when we….." Rayna let out a sob, crying for a minute and allowing Deacon to hold her. She felt his words against her ear, holding onto them and the feel of skin against hers. He doesn't understand, not yet. Selfishly she allowed herself another moment with him, even daring to kiss him gently before pulling back.

"I put your boxers back on and I umm…left you there. I came back the next afternoon but you were gone. I called rehab and they put me through to your room. Matt answered the phone and said you were back."

Rayna put her head in her hands for a moment. Just do it. You don't have a choice at this point. "Okay, there is just no easy way to say this."

Deacon gave her a confused look as she continued. "Deacon….Deacon that night…that night Maddie was conceived." His expression didn't change but he sat up straighter in his chair, moving away from her. He's in shock. Rayna continued, feeling her heart fall. "Teddy and I didn't…we didn't sleep together until a few days before the wedding."

His voice broke with one syllable, "Ray."

Rayna couldn't stop the tears, "Deacon, I don't even know what to say."

Deacon stood up, his quick movements pushing the chair back as starting pacing. Rayna tried to interrupt but Deacon yelled at her to "shut up. Just SHUT UP."

"Deacon I…"

His voiced boomed in the small space. "YOU TELL ME. YOU TELL ME THAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE MY CHILD. MY CHILD RAY."

"I…"

Her voice was drowned out by his, "YOU TELL ME YOU DIDN'T HAVE MY CHILD AND THIRTEEN YEARS LATER DECIDE TO FINALLY DAMN TELL ME.…"

Rayna couldn't make herself say anything, while Deacon kept yelling at her. She listened as he yelled at her and begged her to tell her she was lying. Then he demanded she tell him, "You tell me that this isn't true. YOU TELL ME YOU DIDN'T LIE TO ME EVERY DAMN DAY. YOU TELL ME YOU DIDN'T GIVE MY CHILD TO SOME MAN."

Rayna didn't know how long he yelled but all of sudden he announced he couldn't even look at her anymore. She softly whispered that she loved him and that she "needed him."

His face was red with anger and his hands were shaking. But he looked at her, with tears in his eyes. "I don't even know what to do with that." She pressed her lips together, unsure of what to say. But when she tried to apologize, Deacon lost it again and started yelling at her.

Eventually, he stormed off, slamming the screen door behind him. Rayna heard him kick his truck and cuss out loud. She wrapped her arms around her chest and pulled her legs up to him. Eventually, she heard the car start and then nothingness. He has never looked at me like that. Like he didn't even know who I was. It was only then that she allowed herself to sink to the floor and cry.