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They left the grass behind, plunging back into a pine forest, and trekked along the larger incline of the trail until a small clearing opened up with a sheer rock face at its back. Maggie had heard the gurgle of water, but nothing could have prepared for the sixty-foot falls thundering over the rocks. Water tumbled from a natural ledge at the top of the rock wall, gathering into a small, crystal pool before bleeding out into a creek that ran back through the forest, perpendicular to their trail.
“Wow.” Maggie froze in her tracks, hypnotized by the cascade. She turned towards Dean, heart pounding in her chest. “This is incredible.”
He nodded and found a spot to sit on a large, flat rock.
“This place reminds me of you, Babs,” he said, eyes trained on the waterfall. “Every time I think of you, I think of falling in love. That’s what you write about, right? The story leads two people together. To that magic moment where they let themselves fall.” Dean rested his forearms on his raised knees. “I’ve always imagined falling in love is like standing at the bottom of a waterfall. Water pounding down on you, ready to drown you under its relentless pressure. But also enjoying being carried over the edge and down to the rocks below. Falling with no guarantee of a soft landing, just a hope that you reach the bottom.”
Maggie’s heart turned over at Dean’s words and she couldn’t stop herself from slipping into a spot next to him on the cool rock. “Your version of love is a force of nature, Dean.”
“My version?” He turned his face towards Maggie, but his usual smile was lacking. “You don’t believe love is powerful?”
“Powerful, yes, but not as terrifying as you make it sound.”
“Love is terrifying. You don’t come out the same after falling in love.”
“The water at the top of the waterfall is the same water at the bottom,” Maggie said.
Dean leaned back, his hands braced against the surface of the rock. “But not entirely the same.”
Dean was wrong, Maggie mused, as she sat back on the rock too, tilting her face up to the sun. Falling in love with him had been remarkably easy. The feelings had slid right in under the history they shared until one day she opened her eyes and realized that having Dean around made her happy. He cared for her, kept her safe, and made her smile. She had been the same Maggie before loving Dean and she’d been the same Maggie after. As though she’d loved him forever.
“How is your book coming along?” Dean laid his body flat against the stone. “Have our dates been helping?”
“Yes,” Maggie said, and honesty made her add, “And no. Some things have been helping, but I’m still struggling with making the connections. I have a lot of work left to make the chemistry believable.”
“We don’t have to end things after today,” Dean said. His hand found Maggie’s, and he squeezed her fingers with his. “We can keep this going as long as you need.”
Maggie squeezed back, the response caught in her throat.
“Thank you,” she managed to say, but a loud boom drowned out her words and echoed through the clearing. The sky opened up over them, rain pouring down as if the waterfall had extended to the sky.
Dean wrestled two raincoats out of the backpack, but it was too late. Drenched to the bone, they carefully slipped off the rock. Maggie pushed her hair back out of her face and secured it with an elastic. They were a good two hours away from the car with rain blowing sideways.
“Should we head back?” Maggie asked, her eyes on the trail as the dirt turned from solid ground to muddy sludge.
“I don’t think we should stay by the waterfall,” Dean said, and held his hand out for her to take. “We’ll just do the best we can.”
It occurred to Maggie, as they stumbled blindly down the trail towards the distant inn, that she couldn’t have fabricated a better romance scenario if she had tried. They’d gone on a hike and drowned in a monsoon, only after some illuminating discussion of romance and love, and now Dean was clutching her hand in his as he navigated them back to relative safety. He’d also asked to extend their relationship. It was everything she could have asked for. The only thing left would be for her to sprain an ankle and have Dean carry her the rest of the way.
After half an hour of trudging through the rain, Maggie shivered, daydreaming about hot cocoa and sunburns and wondering why romance novels made this seem like this was the best scenario in the history of love. She’d pulled Dean’s sweatshirt on and they’d donned the raincoats, despite already being soaked clear through. At least it stopped the bite of the wind. Dean’s cheeks were pink from its nip, and despite how miserable the weather and the cold were, he still wore his wide grin, flashing white teeth at Maggie as they ducked their heads and kept moving.
They’d made it through the clearing, the storm completely blocking the views of the distant snow-capped mountains, when it happened. Like a zombie hand breaking the surface of a grave, a tree root came out of the ground, snagging her around the ankle. Maggie would admit she was a powerful manifestor.
Dean caught her before she added a mud bath to her list of morning activities, but there was a wrench, and a pop, and a slice of burning pain shooting through the bone at the side of her ankle. She shrieked in agony. Dean held her pressed against his soggy chest while she kept her injured ankle hefted into the air. Maggie pressed her forehead against the slick of his raincoat, so focused on breathing through the pain that she couldn’t enjoy how close she was to the man she’d loved her whole life.
“It hurts,” she cried.
“I know it does, Babs.” He shifted her off of his body and looked down at her foot as though he could see it through her shoes and socks and seeing it would tell him how to fix it.
“Can you walk at all?”
Maggie tried to put her foot down and limp forward. Searing pain knifed through her ankle and up her calf. She sucked in a breath, swallowed her shriek, and ducked her head back into Dean’s chest.
“That would be a no.” He tightened his arms around her. “Good thing you’re tiny, Babs.”
Even though she knew what Dean was planning, Maggie still gasped as he hefted her up into his arms.
“In the movies this always looks so romantic,” Dean admitted, ducking his head to whisper the words against Maggie’s ear. “But honestly, I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse out here until picking you up plastered both our wet clothes up against me.”
