The Right Kind of Magic

She took the tiny paper with the writing and put it in the locket, then she closed it and clasped the silver chain around my neck. “That paper has the name of someone who will be very important to you when you’re a grown-up lady. It’s the name of the man that you’ll marry someday…” Nealy Duncan isn’t interested in folklore and superstitions—or in marriage, for that matter. She’s a realist and she’s living with real-world problems, like graduating from college while paying for a few drops of gas for her car. Like putting food on the table. Like steering her mother out of trouble and keeping a roof over their heads. There’s no time for fantasy and mystical thinking, and there are no love matches here. She doesn’t want one, either. That’s why it doesn’t make sense when she meets Carver. He’s nothing like a prince in a story—just a normal guy with big old dog, a normal guy who has a car instead of a carriage. But to Nealy’s shock, he makes her stomach flip and her heart race for the first time ever. He seems to like her just fine, and he doesn’t mind the drama that tags along to wherever she might be living this week. It’s weird how they get along, how she seems to feel a connection that ties them together, but love? Hardly. What about marriage, and happily ever after? That’s not what Carver wants, either. No matter what her heart says, no matter what some piece of paper in a locket claims to promise, they aren’t going to write their own fairy tale. This is reality, after all, but sometimes even reality gets a dose of magic…