Wedding Bell Blues
The things a woman will do for love… and Lily had love, lots of it. But her partner Charlotte is dead.
Their daughter Mimi keeps her sane—until Charlotte's family claims they have all the rights to Mimi,
who is their blood kin, and no “real” relation to Lily. With what’s left of her world balanced on a
razor’s edge, any choice to find safer ground seems reasonable.
Even getting married. Married to her Bugle Boy-wearing, trust fund-spending gay neighbor, Ben.
Married and relocated to rural Georgia where Ben’s powerful family will make sure Lily gets custody
of Mimi.
Just one little trick involved: convincing Ben’s parents their marriage is the real thing. It doesn't seem
like keeping up appearances will be that hard. But the charade gets more difficult when a beautiful
country veterinarian offers Lily a taste of what she’s pretending she no longer craves…
CHAPTER 1
“Widowhood may cause some major changes in my life, but it sure as hell won’t affect my wardrobe,”Lily muttered as she surveyed the dozens of black dresses in her closet. Of course, even though all of herdresses were black, most of them wouldn’t be appropriate for the memorial service—or the funeral, asCharlotte’s parents insisted on calling it.
The black minidress printed with images of Jackie O’s face was definitely out, although Lily couldn’thelp but think that Charlotte—wherever she was—would get a kick out of seeing Lily show up at hermemorial service in a dress paying tribute to that most famous of professional widows. Lily would haveto wear something with long enough sleeves to cover her tattoos —the woman’s symbol in Celticknotwork she’d gotten on her right bicep to celebrate her lesbianism and the matching band in knotworkshe’d gotten just below it, to mark her commitment to Charlotte.
After Lily and Charlotte had been together three years, they were surprised to find themselves yearningfor a symbol of the permanence of their relationship. The media flooded consumers with images ofheterosexual commitment: diamond engagement rings, virginal white wedding gowns, and honeymoonsuites reserved for church-and-state-approved hetero hanky-panky. But for same-sex couples, symbols ofcommitment were hard to find.
They had toyed briefly with the ring—and-commitment—ceremony route but gave up the notion whenthey tried to picture themselves in a jewelry store, crooning over diamonds like a former frat boy and hisbleached-blonde bride-to-be. Besides, the only pieces of jewelry Lily wore regularly were the silver rings
