THE HOUSE ETHAN COLE BUILT FOR TWO

Chapter 19

Before going to bed, Ethan stopped outside Lily’s room.

The door was slightly open.

She was asleep.

Charlie the stuffed rabbit was tucked beneath her arm.

Her drawings covered the wall.

The moonlight fell across the yellow paint.

Ethan stood there for a moment.

Then quietly closed the door.

He walked downstairs.

His keys rested on the table.

His work boots were by the door.

Tomorrow morning, he’d go to the workshop.

Walter would probably complain.

June would probably have coffee waiting.

Someone would probably need something repaired.

The town would wake.

Life would continue.

And for the first time, Ethan didn’t feel like he was waiting for the next chapter.

He was living it.

The house had cost almost everything he had saved.

But money wasn’t what made it valuable.

It was the sound of Lily laughing in the kitchen.

The drawings on the walls.

The small yellow bedroom upstairs.

The word “Dad.”

The knowledge that someone would be there when he came home.

Ethan turned off the last light.

Outside, Greyhaven slept beneath a quiet sky.

Inside the little house at the edge of town, two lives had finally found the same place to belong.

And perhaps that was the greatest thing Ethan Cole had ever built.

Not the house.

Not the porch.

Not the walls.

A home.

For Lily.

For himself.

For two people who had once been strangers to almost everyone…

and had somehow become family.