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PROLOGUE
“Are you sure about this, Lily?” She gave her older sister a one-eyed squint. “Lilian,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry. I’ve known you as Lily for over twenty-four years. It’s hard to start calling you Lilian now.”
“It’s more professional sounding,” Lilian said. She supposed for years it was fine to be Lily, but now she was moving to the Big Apple.
She wanted to make something of herself.
She wanted a job where she would be respected and looked at as someone knowledgeable. Someone not raised in the foster care system with a mother in and out of jail and a father whose name she didn’t even know.
“I’m nervous for you,” Quinn said. Quinn was ten years older than her and married to a plastic surgeon. The same single father who’d hired her older sister to be his nanny years ago in Lake Placid.
“Don’t be,” she said. “You never really cared for the bigger city living. I liked it. I gave this a try, but there just isn’t room for growth here.”
Quinn sighed. “I know. I’ve loved having you so close for the past six years. I really have.”
“I’ve loved being here,” Lilian said.
She’d never be able to thank her sister enough for taking her in when she graduated high school in Chicago.
Her foster parents let her stay past eighteen so that she could finish up high school. They were great and would try to help her as best they could, but after graduation she knew she’d be on her own. Though she got a lot of financial aid for college, it was living somewhere during breaks that would be hard. As wonderful as the Websters were, they needed her spot for another child to help.
Her brother-in-law opened the doors to his beautiful home on the lake for her and let her stay in the housekeeper quarters that Quinn had first lived in.
Lily had to admit, it was the nicest house she’d ever seen, let alone lived in. She went to college in Plattsburg an hour away, lived in the dorms and had a place to come home to when she wanted.
Her first job out of college wasn’t exactly her dream career in communication and she knew the chances of finding something she wanted were slim to none in this area.
But she’d been making it work for two years while living with her sister, helping her out with Max’s older kids, Davy and Lara, and Quinn and Max’s two kids, Jocelyn and Carson.
It was time for her to move on though. Or at least to start trying.
Finding a job and then a place to live wasn’t going to be easy, but nothing in her life had ever been easy.
“We loved having you. I hope you don’t think you’re in the way. No one thinks that. You have your own little apartment in the back. You’ve got friends and a life here. You’re hardly in the way.”
She saw Quinn’s eyes fill a little with tears.
“I don’t feel that way. You’ve got everything under control like you always did. Davy is going off to college soon.”
“It’s so hard to believe he’s a senior and graduating in six months. I think Max is going to struggle there.”
“He probably will,” she said. “But he’s got Lara to keep him on his toes for two more years, and then the start of everything all over again with Jocelyn and Carson.”
Her niece was in kindergarten, her nephew was only three.
“I’m going to miss you,” Quinn said.
“You’re making it sound like I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, laughing. “I’m just telling you that I’ve decided to look for a job and then a place to stay. I’m not sure what is going to be harder. Probably a place to stay.”
“It’s going to be so expensive there,” Quinn said.
“I’ve got a lot of money put away because you and Max don’t let me pay for anything. Which I appreciate. You taught me how to budget. I’ll be fine.”
She’d never had much growing up. Like Quinn, what she had and earned she held onto as tightly as getting the squeeze from an octopus. It’d help her when the time was right.
“I know you will,” Quinn said. “I’m worrying over nothing. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you always have. Tess and Ronnie did such a good job with you.”
“You did a good job with me,” she said, hugging her sister. “I know how much you wanted to take me in and you beat yourself up over it for years.”
