WOW! Thank you to all your comments on the last chapter. You all are awesome! This chapter came much more easily than the last. Thank you to everyone. This chapter cover Episode 14.

Chapter 11

Seventy Seven

I don't buy tabloids.

Those are for those weird people who believe in alien invasions and the stories about Elvis being alive in Argentina. But here I am, with three different tabloids in my grocery bag along with my Cheerios and Root Beer.

I don't even get home before I pull over in a gas station parking lot. I grab one the one with the headline declaring, "Their D-I-V-O-R-C-E begins today". It has a picture of Ray and Teddy from election night. There is a two page spread with a copy of the divorce papers. Teddy filed them in Sumner County. According to a clerk named Debbie, Teddy was in a somber mood and wore sunglasses.

I get madder as I open the second rag. This one is covered with pictures of me and Ray from a Grammy performance about six years ago, an unfamiliar picture of Rayna and Liam, and the infamous pictures of Teddy hugging that woman. The yellow letters declared her the Queen of Country and him Nashville's Mayor with the words, "Inside their Secret Divorce." This has a source close to the Mayor who says neither party had an affair. They call it a "private matter" then confirms that Rayna and Teddy have been sleeping in different bedrooms for months. I see my picture in a box on the right hand side with a captain. "Will Rayna turn to her ex to help her through the divorce?" I punch my steering wheel out of answer. Considering Ray didn't bother to tell me any of this, I think that answer is 'no.'

I throw the paper down and dig in the bag for the last one. The third headline had a picture of Rayna, Teddy, and the girls with an inset box of Teddy hugging that woman. It declared the other woman a 'May-Whore.' I roll my eyes. Mayor, May-whore. Man they really spent a lot of time working on that tag.

There is a story that while Rayna and the girls went home on election night, Peggy and Teddy stayed at the victory party for hours. There was a fuzzy camera phone picture of Teddy and Peggy out on the streets of Nashville.

And there I am again. It was a picture from Watty's tribute concert at the Opry. We were walking off stage together. The picture captured my hand on her shoulder as she leaned into me. The story that went along with picture was four paragraphs. It detailed my twenty something year relationship with Ray. Young, in love, a drunk boy, an ambitious girl, stints in rehab, marries Teddy, still good friends.

Without thinking, I snap a picture of one of the tabloids with my phone and forward the picture to Ray. A second later I type "seriously". I push send without realizing what I've done. But then I stare at the phone waiting for her response. Part of me hopes she calls me and part of me dares her to.

Seventy Eight

I googled myself.

I know I shouldn't have done it. But I couldn't help myself. I just wanted to know what everyone was saying about the divorce. About five minutes in, I realized my mistake but by then I'd already read lots of fun lies about me and some awesome puns for both myself and Teddy.

One of the blogs had a picture of Deacon and I from the Rockies. The story itself was a girl who was excited I was getting a divorce. She hoped Deacon and I would get back together because we were soul mates. On her blog, there were people congratulating her about my divorce. The whole thing was just bizarre. I scrolled back up and just stared at the picture of me and Deacon with the mountain range behind us.

And since then, that's all I've been able to think about.

So now, I'm lying in the bed I haven't shared with Teddy in months and I'm thinking about Deacon and I camping.

It has been the label's idea. One that I wasn't crazy about considering Daphne was only eleven months old. But the label insisted and it was a good idea. They wanted a photo shoot for the album's cover to match its name, 'Wild at Heart.' To save money and keep with a theme for the album, the label agreed to do a tie-in with CMT. A two hour special. We did a sit down acoustic set, playing some old songs and some new ones. We filmed each song in different place in the park. So we'd hiked up the side of mountains and waded through creeks to get the perfect locations.

Then we filmed a few short interviews that were edited in between the songs. They were little stories about funny back stage antics by the crew or a PG version of how some of those songs came to be. Some of the interviews were done with me sitting on a boulder; others were done with me standing in front of a waterfall. My ass got soaked in the process.

Between the photoshoots, promos, filming the special, doing promotion for the special, we found it was easier just to stay at the Rocky Mountain National Park. So we camped for three nights and four days. We had RVs but some of the guys preferred the nice camping tents to the cramped RVs we rented. For dinner, all thirty of us or so would wonder into one of the local towns for dinner. Then the band and I would come back. They'd play old songs and we'd sing around campfires. All three nights, Deacon and I stayed out after everyone else went to bed.

We laid on a blanket together the first night, the embers still smoking in the fire. His body faced one way and mine the other. But our heads had been beside each other so we could talk in whispers.

The first night we laughed like school kids when we started pointing out made up stars constellations and what we thought they looked like. I found a shirt, a castle, and an old grumpy man's face. We named the face, 'Lamar'.

He found a foot, a dog, a pirate ship, a stars war character, and about a dozen other things. We named the dog 'Twinkle' and he named the boat 'Postcard'. He just laughed and suggested the boat's country of port was Mexico. I'd giggled like I was drunk that night and just kept repeated "Our ship is a Postcard from Mexico."

The next night, we shared a pillow as we looked up into the night. Deacon and I were still smart enough to lay opposite each other so there would be no accidental touching. He strummed his guitar, playing a new melody he was working on. A few hours later, that song became 'In the Night.' That night, he brought up the time I turned the living room into Camp Brown Bear. I blushed, remembering how long I worked on that camp counselor outfit and how quickly Deacon had taken it off.

And then I told him I was tired. I wasn't but I was a happily married woman at that point. At least that is what I told myself an hour later when I still couldn't get to sleep in the bedroom of the RV.

The third night, I'd worn an old sweatshirt to the campfire. He'd worn his usual jeans and a t-shirt. And when I went to laid down on the blanket, we faced our bodies opposite again. My feet faced the RV and his faced the mountain range. We quickly got lost in conversation about the album and the interviews I'd done earlier that day.

He made some joke about me being able to talk about anything for ten minutes. I reached over my head and knocked him in his chest. He made an "oof" sound and grabbed my arm. Somehow I ended up twisted around, my head on his chest with my hair covering his face. And then we found ourselves face to face. Close enough to kiss. And we did almost. I'd licked my lips in anticipation but then just as quickly I'd pulled myself out of the fog and pushed myself off of him.

Then we talked about how good our friendship was and what a great place we both were professionally and personally. It wasn't a complete lie but it wasn't the truth either. But if we kept saying it out loud, it made it seem more real.

Seventy Nine

I keep thinking about my 22nd birthday.

That's weird. There was nothing crazy about it. The night before we'd gone out with Vince and a couple of other buddies. I'd gotten drunk, so had Ray.

But then about noon I was woken up to Rayna in one of my old sweat shirts and panties singing Happy Birthday to me. She was holding a pineapple upside down cake with lit candles. I blew out the candles, gave Ray a kiss, and then we proceeded to eat the cake in bed with a fork.

I watched Old Yeller that afternoon while Rayna made supper. She knew I loved the movie in part because Dad always watched it with me. Somewhere through the years, I'd fallen accustomed to watching it on my birthday. Ray couldn't stand the movie but always made sure I had time to watch it while she did something else.

Ray gave me a new guitar strap that year and cowboy boots. They were Luccheses. Black ones that she'd seen me looking at when we'd been in Dallas. Of course she hadn't wrapped them. Instead she'd worn both my boots and my guitar strap on herself…and nothing else. Yep, that had been my kind of surprise.

I hear the door knock and look out my side window, unsurprised to see Scarlett standing there with a cupcake in hand.

Eighty

For years, I hated this piano.

Not just this one but all of them. I suppose it was better than Tandy being forced to play the violin. It was one of the things Daddy insisted on. Tandy was terrible and eventually they let her stop. As for fourth grade me, I bargained with Daddy. If he let me take guitar lessons, I would continue piano lessons. He agreed, with coaxing from Mama.

I already knew how to read music and Mama taught me the basic chords years before. But once I started taking guitar lessons, I fell in love. Not with the guitar per se. But with music and with my Mom.

Mama and I would spend hours on the stairs singing and playing. She told me it had the best acoustics in the house but it also had a good view of the driveway. And when Daddy came home, the guitars went up. Despite my love of guitar, my piano playing had always been much better.

I trace my fingers over the black and white keys. Today is Deacon's birthday and Juliette is hosting some stupid party for him tonight. He'll hate it.

No that isn't true, he'll be flattered by it. Then he'll stand in the corner and talk to his friends one-on-one. He would rather be at home, eating some homemade cake and playing on his guitar. And then I wonder why I'm even thinking about him and his birthday.

Last time I saw him, he yelled at me. Yelled at me in front of half the crew clearly mad at something I did. Then his text about the divorce was hardly friendly. So far, he hasn't called me and I haven't called him. And I wonder for a few minutes why Deacon is invading my thoughts, like always. I tell myself out loud to stop it. The last thing I need is his voice to add to the Daddy's, Teddy's and Tandy's voices. I just want the voices in my head to stop.

I physically push myself off the bench. I swear it feels like I can barely stand up right now. My legs are wobbly and I feel physically weak. I think maybe a walk would do me good but then I remember the paparazzi. And I feel claustrophobic, trapped somehow. I look at the clock on the wall. It reads 11:15.

The girls won't be out of school for hours. I sit back down. I feel the keys again.

Eighty One

She wrote a song for me.

She doesn't say that out loud but I know. She hasn't written a song about me in years. I write them all of the time about her. I sing them all the time at the Bluebird and by myself. But she doesn't write them for me.

Until tonight. And somehow that means so much more than the hug we just shared. The hug that I held on to for a second too long.

I find myself staring at her, like always. Only this time she is staring back at me. In public. And I can feel their eyes on me but I can't look away from her. And when the song ends and the applause starts, I smile.

I smile cause the song was beautiful. I smile cause she is beautiful standing up there. I smile cause she told everybody on stage that, "If there was no Deacon Clayborne there would be no Rayna Jaymes." I smile because the tabloids are going to assume we are back together which means no more stupid articles about she and Liam. I smile because the wedding ring on her finger won't be there much longer. And I smile because no matter what, there is me and her.

Eighty Two

I want to do right by Deacon.

I told him that earlier and it's the only truth I have right now.

Aunt Eleanor use to say that all the time. Daddy still says it on occasion. So does Coleman.

It my family it's a promise. And tonight that was my promise to him. I don't know how. And I don't have a timeline but someday I'll make it up to him. All the years of waiting and hoping and believing that we'd finally be back together. I'll show him he was right for waiting. I'll show him he was right about a lot of things. I'll do right by him, as soon as I can.