“Looks like you two had a good night,” Bryan said, and he was spot on. They’d had a fantastic night. They always did.

On the way out, Kat hugged Casey. “We had a great time just getting out of the house to see a movie. I can’t even tell you how much it means to me that you helped out,” Kat said, placing her hand on her heart. “Two little babies are a handful.”

“It was truly a pleasure. They are sweet as sweet can be and they love their uncle big time,” Casey said.

Nate stood by the town car idling at the curb. He leaned against the gleaming black door, scrolling through his phone as he waited for her. No rushing, no pressure. Her suitcase was already in the car; she’d remembered to bring it along since they were taking off in a few hours.

“One more thing,” Kat said in a low voice as she grasped Casey’s arm, wrapping her fingers around it. “I always hoped it would be you.”

Casey furrowed her brow.

Kat cast her eyes toward Nate, then whispered, “It’s not as if I failed to pick up on the sparks between the two of you, or missed the reason why he kicked us out of the game last week.”

Casey blushed, and lowered her face.

“Hey, this isn’t a bad thing,” Kat said, gently squeezing her arm. Casey raised her eyes. “I always thought you’d be the one to break the spell.”

She laughed as if Kat were crazy. “What spell?”

“I truly believe he’s been in this dark spell after what happened with Joanna. And that eventually somehow the spell would be broken,” Kat said. She was clearly even more of a romantic than Casey.

Casey shot her a smile, but shook her head. “I don’t know that he’s under a spell. I think he’s made a deliberate choice.”

Kat shrugged happily. “I believe what I believe. And I’ve always believed it would take a very special woman to break that spell for my brother. Someone he trusts with his whole heart. Who else would that be but you?”

“Oh, Kat. Even if I believed in fairy tales like that,” she began, and the funny thing was Casey did believe in fairy tales, and in the kind of love they promised, but as she glanced at the beautiful man leaning against the car, she knew that it couldn’t ever be with him. Because he’d made his choice to live on the other side of the dream. “He so clearly doesn’t.”

Kat pulled her in for another hug. “Spells are made to be broken.”

But Casey wasn’t so sure. The practitioner of this one had a particularly strong hold on Nate, had molded him, put him in the kiln, and baked him into this kind of stone—impermeable to love. There was no give in this area of Nate’s makeup. No room for change.