Read Online To Love and to Cherish by Leigh Greenwood - Free Book Online Page A

with a generous amount for clothing. Do you really need that much?”
    Noah had spent more than necessary on her clothes because he was never satisfied with what he could find in made-up dresses. When a seamstress came to Cactus Corner three months before his death, Noah had immediately engaged her to make clothes for Laurie. He’d been enraged when the woman refused to make the kind of dresses he required. She said if women saw Laurie parading around town in a dress that fit no better than a sack, she wouldn’t have a single customer.
    â€œIf I’m going to wear the black or gray dresses you insist I wear for the next six months, I need extra money. I don’t own any suitable dresses.” The only positive side of Noah’s taste in clothes was that he hated to see her in black. He said with her blond hair and pale complexion, the color made her look like she was ill.
    â€œI’m a very busy man, but I think I can manage to find the time to help you choose your dresses.”
    Laurie looked at Norman like he’d lost his mind. “I’m not letting you decide what I can and cannot wear.”
    â€œNoah did. He would expect me to do the same. He certainly wouldn’t approve of that dress as a model for mourning wear. I have half an hour this afternoon between two and two-thirty. I’ve instructed Amber to have a selection of dresses for us to view.”
    That was too much for Laurie. Something inside her exploded, making it impossible to remain in Norman’s office a moment longer. Without a word, she snatched up her hat, surged to her feet, and stalked from the room with all the dignity she could muster.
    â€œCome back. We’re not finished. You can’t walk out…”
    She didn’t need to hear another word to know Norman was going to be more controlling than Noah. A sense of desperation seized her. She felt crushed, suffocated, hemmed in with nowhere to turn and no one to help her. Everyone in town could agree that Norman was being unfair, could insist he was perverting Noah’s will to feed his own need for control, but no one had the power to change Norman’s mind. She was a rich woman, but she would be treated like a beggarly dependent. She wouldn’t be allowed to choose her own clothes, probably not her food, either. She might as well be living in Norman’s house for all the control she would have over her own home. She couldn’t live that way.
    The moment she appeared in the lobby, Cassie took one look at her and rose from her chair.
    â€œYou look too upset to be alone.”
    â€œI’m all right. I just want to go home.”
    â€œI’ll go with you, but you ought to have someone stay with you until you feel better.”
    â€œI’ll never feel better.” Laurie moaned. “I wish I were dead.”
    Cassie grabbed her coat and caught up with Laurie just before she reached the door to the street. “That would be a great waste. You’ll make the right man a wonderful wife.”
    â€œI don’t want anything to do with men. I especially don’t want to be a wife.”
    Laurie knew she needed to get herself under control before she left the bank, or she would attract unwanted attention. But rather than rein in her emotions, she itched to tear up that wicked will and tell Norman he was a slimy toad. It would have given her great satisfaction to scatter papers and pull down books he’d never read, anything to destroy the obsessive orderliness of his office, but that wouldn’t have changed anything. She had to think, and she had to calm down before she could do that.
    â€œYou don’t have to accompany me home,” she said to Cassie as they headed down the boardwalk. “I don’t want you to lose your job.”
    â€œNorman won’t fire me. He likes money more than he dislikes having a woman work for him. Besides, Frank Oliver made giving me a job part of the memorial to Toby.