I spend thirty minutes sitting next to the falls on my favorite rock—which is still here, thankfully.

While I sit there, I take the ring out and study it. I bought the matching wedding band set yesterday in Miami. I walk past a jewelry store on my way to the office from the parking garage. They caught my eye in the window, and I found myself walking in and buying them before I even realized what I was doing. It wasn’t even a conscious series of decisions; it was blind instinct that immediately calmed my soul and made me realize that I don’t belong in Miami if there’s still a home for me here.

That’s when I knew for certain that, when I came here, I wouldn’t be leaving. Not if he doesn’t send me away.

This ring’s his and the other’s in my wallet. If he turns me down, I’ll totally deserve it.

But if he gives me another chance, I’ll prove from the start I’m serious. That I mean it about choosing him over everything else. I should have married him years ago when he first brought it up instead of thinking I needed to meet some arbitrary income level for success first.

After taking videos and pictures to remember this precious place by, in case it’s the last time I ever see it again, I slowly make my way down the trail toward the parking area.

That’s when my infamous luck takes another turn and I trip, falling flat on my face. Fortunately, on a level section of trail.

Dang it.

It figures I’d take a tumble. I wouldn’t be me if something didn’t go sideways.

After I pick myself up and dust myself off, I briefly panic when I can’t immediately locate the ring in my pocket. Then, with a rush of relief, I find where it had impaled itself on my tube of lip balm, avoiding my searching fingers for a moment.

There’s still no one else in the parking area when I reach my SUV. I dig out a suit from my garment bag and change right there, using my reflection in the window to tie my tie.

Now I look like an attorney.

When I think about how cheap it’d be to lease an office in Maudlin Falls, the voice scolding me not to be ridiculous sounds mostly like my mother’s, with a little bit of Dad thrown in for extra guilt.

We didn’t pay all that money to send you to college and law school for you to waste your life in that little nowhere town.

Well, he must not love you very much if he won’t move to be with you.

Why would he want to stay there in that little hick town when he could make so much more money with his degree working for someone else in Miami or New York?

Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to be with you, son? You’ll find a nice guy who recognizes what a catch you are. It’s his loss.

What will our friends say if you do nothing with your life?

Hating all those irritating snippets, I angrily shove them aside. In the beginning, I tried to cling to those words as a lifeline of sorts, to lie to myself that I’d made the right decision.

It took me less than a year to realize how wrong I was. Every time Tom left me after a visit, it made me want to chase him and beg him to let me come home.

Still I resisted, thinking I could wear him down.

Over the past three years since I’ve left Maudlin Falls, I’ve nuked five potential relationships, two of which never made it past the one-week mark. The latest lasted two months and ended three weeks ago, even though he insists it’s not over and keeps trying to get me to change my mind.

That’ll teach me to never date someone I work with.

Once I’m back in my SUV and have the engine running, I leave the radio off and slowly make my way across the parking area and toward the dirt road. Except…

Something’s wrong.

I pull over, leave it idling, and get out to walk around my SUV.

The right rear tire is low, nearly flat.

You have got to be kidding me!

This is bad by bad-luck standards, even for me.

I turn my Range Rover around, return to a shaded, level section of grass in the parking area, change back into my jeans, and set to work changing my tire. If I call AAA, I know who will respond—Kurt Peyton, from the Maudlin Falls Garage. It’s the only garage close by, and it’s all the way in town.

Problem is, he knows me. He’s changed enough of my tires, unlocked my car doors, and jump-started enough vehicles for me over the years that there’s no way he wouldn’t remember me. Plus, he’d have to see my AAA card and ID even if he didn’t remember me.

And Desiderio Keiser isn’t exactly a name that rolls off the tongue, or is easily forgotten.

Meaning word of my return would spread like wildfire before he even returned to town.

Besides, I can change it myself just as quickly as I can waiting for Kurt, by the time he drives all the way out here. At least it’s not too hot today, and I don’t have anyone to witness one more incident in my bad-luck string of them.