For Richer for Poorer Read Free Page B

was there. But the little stone cottage was home now, and she knew she needed to start settling in so it felt like home, sooner rather than later.
     
                  She was lucky she'd negotiated and bought the plantation-style home so low. When the bottom dropped out of the market and she had to sell, she sold at a loss, but did not leave owing a penny because she came to the closing with funds.  The fifteen thousand she used to make up the shortfall all but wiped out her emergency savings, but she didn't owe anybody a dime, and that almost made it worth it.
     
                  "I hope you like your coffee black," she said as Hamilton came back into the house. "I haven't made my grocery store run and don't have cream or sugar."
     
                  "Perfect," he said as he slid the Army green thermos on the counter toward her.
     
                  "Haven't seen a coffee pot like that since my grandpa's house years ago," he said, admiring the working antique.
     
                  "It was my father's," she said. "I had my first cup of coffee at six years old from this pot. Course, mama didn't know anything about it. My daddy was a country man, North Georgia Mountains. He let me do anything he said he would have let a son do, including sneaking coffee and gnawing tobacco when mama wasn't looking."
     
                  Hamilton laughed. "Somehow I can't quite picture you chewing tobacco.
     
                  "Well I did," she laughed, too.
     
                  "Your parents still live in the mountains?" Hamilton asked.
     
                  "No, they passed away years ago. She reached up and touched the locket around her neck. But they're with me always. He saw her eyes grow misty.
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
                  Hamilton thought about his own parents. He'd had a good life growing up. He came from a family of means. And even though he'd struggled in the market, he didn't have to. He had an inheritance -- an inheritance an important stipulation: he'd have to marry and produce a child before he could touch one penny of the monetary legacy that would come to him. 
     
                  The money was always in the back of his mind, and he knew he'd marry one day, and have children, when he met the right woman.  But marriage was nowhere on the radar after graduating from college. He knew he was an entrepreneur and could make his own way in life. His father gave him that confidence, and many more lessons, before he passed. 
     
                  Steele, Sr. taught his only son to work hard and earn his own way.  His inheritance was there for the taking, when it was time.  He'd planned it that way, just as his father and his father's father had done.  But his son would first have to become a man; stand on his own two feet.  When he did that, he'd be ready for a wife, and then a family. And only then would he be ready to claim his inheritance. 
     
                  Hamilton's father's lessons built character, and he liked that about himself, liked the kind of children he'd raise -- with the right woman -- one day. 
     
                  He'd made some business decisions that landed him in a mess, and he vowed to work his way out -- so next time he'd make better choices. Yes, he'd invested too aggressively when the market was burgeoning. This second time around, he had to be smarter. And that's just what he intended to do. He knew he was one good deal from being back on top.
     

Chapter 4
     
     
                  "Husband, boyfriend?" Hamilton asked Miranda out of the blue as they were standing in the kitchen. He didn't see a wedding ring on those pretty fingers, but he knew that didn't always tell the story these days.  He was traditional. If he were married, he'd wear a ring and so would his wife. Period. But not everyone did, so no ring did not