And anyway, happy endings weren’t for everyone.

Did she sometimes dream about buying that empty old Victorian next to her apartment building and turning it into a bookstore or B&B or maybe both? How much fun would she have designing and decorating and just managing something of her own?

But where did a person come up with that kind of money? And anyway, wasn’t it enough that she’d made a decent life for herself? So maybe waitressing wasn’t a glamorous career, but she hadn’t exactly had a wealth of options when she’d been forced to drop out of college. It was a good job that kept her afloat. She had her apartment, she had Micah, she had Nikola.

Some days, when she wasn’t too tired or feeling too alone, she had her faith.

And she’d even managed to indulge her creative side now and then. She’d created websites from scratch for both Nikola and Mezzani’s. Lorenzo at the restaurant had even let her make use of her short stint as a graphic design major, allowing her to come up with a new logo and artwork for the menus.

She needed to believe this life was enough. Because she’d seen what wanting too much could do to a person.

“Nik, remember . . . when I went searching for my birth mom?” It hadn’t been difficult. Apparently, as she’d discovered when she’d called the adoption agency, whatever papers CarleeAnn Picknell had signed when she’d left Sydney as a toddler had allowed for Sydney to discover her name once she reached legal adulthood. From there, all it had taken was an internet search.

Unfortunately, by the time she’d gone looking, it was nearly too late. CarleeAnn was sick and growing sicker by the day.

“Of course I remember.” Nikola’s voice was soft. “You weren’t in a good place after.”

“Exactly.” She tore a piece of her caramel roll free.

“You don’t know that it’d be the same letdown this time.”

She chewed on the bite of her roll, savoring the taste even though it was no longer warm. “Do you remember the photo?”

The one she’d taken from the bedside table in CarleeAnn’s hospital room after their short conversation ended due to the morphine drip. For weeks after that fruitless visit, she’d stared at that photo, studying the faces peering back at her. Two teenage girls—probably only sixteen or seventeen—and a young man in between. CarleeAnn had been the girl on the left.

And she knew now, after Wilder had shown her an old picture of Diana on his phone before leaving her apartment the night before, that the one on the right was Margaret Muir’s daughter. If not for that, she might’ve been able to dismiss the whole thing. Convince herself it was some other CarleeAnn Picknell who’d once lived in Maine.

If not for that, she might’ve actually slept last night.

Nikola nodded.

“Diana Muir was the other girl in the photo.”

Nikola gasped. “Seriously? Way to bury the lede. Then you know this whole thing isn’t entirely impossible. Syd, that dude might actually be on to something. Did you show him the photo? You’ve always thought the guy in the picture might be your dad, right? What did Walter say about that?”