Evenings found them together on the porch, lantern light warm against gathering dark.
“I used to think the auction would define us forever,” Angelina said one night.
“It doesn’t have to,” Jonas replied.
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
Above them, the stars stretched wide and patient.
“Do you ever think,” she asked softly, “that what we’ve begun here might outlast us?”
Jonas did not answer with words.
His hand tightened around hers—steady, certain.
And beneath the vast Western sky, the house that once knew only silence now breathed with belonging.
