Page 1 of June Bride
Chapter 1
BRANDELYN
The one thing Dr. Brandelyn Meyer guaranteed her patients was undivided attention. Whether they came in with a small tingle in their tummy, or blood gushing from one of their orifices, the only full-time GP in Paradise Valley pulled up her stool and gave everything she had until the matter was resolved.
Or so she claimed until one month before her wedding.
Should I spring for those last-minute lessons?Her dog Brutus was easily trainable. He could learn how to carry a pillow of rings down the aisle. Ooh, wouldn’t it beadorable?Her little Pomeranian was one of the most well-loved dogs in Paradise Valley. Brandy couldn’t take him for a walk between Florida and Arizona Streets without the neighbors popping out to say hello and offer him treats. Wouldn’t they absolutely lose it to see him in the wedding procession? Who was carrying the rings right now? Some second cousin she enlisted because he was the only boy under the age of eight in her family?The things I do for tradition…
“Doctor?”
Caught with her eyes glazed over, Brandelyn jerked upright on her stool and almost knocked her stethoscope off her shoulders. The clinging and clanging as she struggled to pull herself together made her patient jump, hand over heart.
“My apologies.” Brandelyn cleared her throat and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. She always wore her long brown hair back, either in a low ponytail or a high bun that stayed out of the way.For my wedding, I’ll finally get to wear it down!She had been looking forward to debuting her gorgeous long locks ever since she realized she could wear it however she wanted on her wedding day. With half of the town invited, that would be alotof gasps. “I suddenly remembered something important that I have to do today. I shouldn’t have been doing that, though. Now, what was it that you needed?”
Her patient, a thirty-something woman named Joan, folded her hands in her lap while her eyes darted back and forth in her skull. Brandelyn knew enough about nervous tics to detect her patient’s lack of faith.Great. Well, at least I have a captive audience in this town.She was the only doctor for thirty miles in either direction and the first line of defense before referrals to the bigger towns and cities flew from her notepad. Most of what she saw were the usual non-emergency illnesses and injuries. Sometimes the appointment was mere formality to renew a prescription. Only once in the past year had she looked at a patient and told them to get the hell to the emergency room twenty-five miles away. Mr. Raymond Green wasn’t going to last long with that heart attack thundering through him. (And, according to his last appointment a week ago, he was doing much better.)
“Our insurance changed this month,” Joan reminded her doctor. She clutched her stomach and pointed her chin downward, as if the answers to her plight were in her lap. “Which means I need a referral to my usual OB/GYN. I gotta do it as soon as possible, obviously.”
“Yes.” Brandelyn looked at the test results on Joan’s chart. “Well, far be it from me to keep you from getting the expert level of care you need.” She said that with a genial smile. She had tone misconstrued before, and she would be damned if yet another patient took her demeanor to mean she was offended. “I’ll have you talk to the receptionist. She’ll take care of everything.” A few signatures later, Joan had her precious referral to a specialist on the coast.
“Thank you so much! I wanted to come in early this month because I know you’ll be busy later.”
Finally! A reason to genuinely grin! “I’ll be taking a couple of weeks off, all right. One week for the honeymoon, and one week to get some affairs sorted.” She couldn’t leave the paperwork up to her fiancée. Sunny was a well-meaning woman, but she was more caught up in her business than the doctor was in hers. Then again, outside of extreme emergencies, Brandy had much more constrained working hours. Sunny ran a bed and breakfast that saw a huge uptick in business during the summer months. Brandelyn wasn’t looking forward to moving furniture and housewares around by herself. Let alone the day after getting back from her honeymoon… which she had planned down to the last minute. At least the deposits were made and the payments on her credit cards handled. Now, as for some of the wedding stuff… Brandy must remember to call her wedding planner about her ideas for the ring bearer.
“It sounds so fantastical,” Joan said with a grin. “I always wanted to have a nice little wedding, but Lorri was very adamant she couldn’t stand much more than City Hall and a nice dinner with friends. Then again, I say we ‘only’ have a domestic partnership right now. There’s still room to register a proper marriage, yes?”
“From my understanding of it, absolutely.” Sunny had come around to the idea of full-blown, nationally-recognized marriage, but it took some convincing. At first, she wanted to get a state-only domestic partnership.“For tax reasons,”she had said. That made Brandy drag her fiancée to the tax preparer’s office for a small lesson in tax brackets and how they could totally get married without paying much more in federal taxes. Hesper Chess had looked like they touched down from another planet, but Brandy left no stone unturned on her path to the perfect wedding.You can’t have a wedding forjusta domestic partnership…Once she and Sunny decided to make their long-term relationship official, a wedding was the only thing Brandy cared about. Sunny knew this. She also knew that her fiancée had been planning the perfect wedding since she was four-years-old.
Brandelyn personally showed Joan back to reception. Once she ensured everything was taken care of, Brandy escaped to her office, where she shut the door and sank into her plush leather chair. Her next appointment block was free. Plenty of time to call the wedding planner!
She should have called Sunny first, but one of the most blessed things about planning a wedding with her? She didn’t care nearly as much as Brandy, who lived and breathed wedding planning. Hell, sometimes she joked that she had been waiting her whole life to get married!
It started when Charles and Diana got married, hadn’t it? Four-year-old Brandelyn, future doctor and core member of her small community, parked her butt in front of her father’s Manhattan TV and beheld the royal spectacle that shook the world. Not until their son William got married a few years ago had Brandy seen anything else like it.You bet your ass I took the day off to watch that!She was also stealing plenty of glances at her phone the day that actress from “Suits” married Harry. Nobody really understood her fascination with ostentatious weddings. Especially not in Paradise Valley, where humble mentalities met complete eschewing of traditionally heterosexual practices. While it wasn’t uncommon to see lesbian couples in tux and dress – or two dresses, no less – there was nothing about it that screamed they did it because they simply had to. Brandy accepted that she was an outlier. Part of the reason she moved west after growing up in New York was to expand her horizons – and to find the kind of woman who jived with her best.A simple country girl. Simple in practice and desires. Not simple in mind.She had found that woman in Sunny Croker, a homegrown Paradise Valley gal who didn’t look a day over thirty when they met seven years ago. It took two more years for them to start going out – Brandy had been much too busy taking over the only practice in town to properly date, but she always had her eye on the lovely lady in plaid and jeans who made weekly appearances at the library, bank, supermarket, and lesbian bar. The whole reason Brandy went to that dive every Friday night was for a chance to see Sunny!
How nobody snatched her up before me, I have no idea.Sunny claimed she hadn’t dated much. Yet she was a total pro in the sack.Uh huh. Didn’t date much.Maybe not seriously dated…
Brandy kept her giggles to herself as she plucked her phone off her desk. One year ago, she asked Sunny to marry her, setting in motion the events that led to this month.
I’m finally getting married. I’m finally getting the wedding of my dreams.
The little four-year-old watching royal weddings on TV had no idea what would finally happen forty years later. Her, in a wedding dress to make Kate Middletoncry.Her gorgeous fiancée, the sweetest woman in paradise valley, in a fitted tuxedo that turned the usual groom’s cake topper on his head!
The aesthetics were perfect. Well, almost.
“Hello, Debbie? Great! It’s me, Brandy!” As if Debbie would ever forget Brandelyn, the woman who blew up her phone every damn day. “Listen, I had thecutestidea for the wedding. How hard do you think it would be to strap the ring pillow to Brutus and train him to walk down the aisle by himself? People would go crazy, right? Oh, he’s totally fine with a crowd. This is the boy who jumps through hoops every Fourth of July at the dog parade.”
Debbie gave her a less than enthusiastic response. It was enough!
Chapter 2
SUNNY
“You really must try this one.” Sunny climbed down her stool, but did not bother to shut the pantry doors. Her guest, the only one in the house at the time, sat at the large farmhouse table by the big paned windows overlooking the immaculately groomed acreage that made up Waterlily House. (However, there were no waterlilies to be seen on the property, outside of a few paintings and other motifs Sunny added through the years.) “You can buy these at the farmer’s market, but I get them wholesale directly from the supplier. Go on. Try the marionberry one and tell me it doesn’t melt on your tongue.”
Fleur Rosé, a hotshot actress who recently instigated a media storm when she was caught dating a local from Paradise Valley, tittered to receive the sampling of jam. Four others already lined up before her plate of pancakes and toast. Fleur lamented that she really shouldn’t be loading up on carbs before resuming the filming of some mini-series, but how could sherefusewhen she was a glutton for homemade jams and jellies?
Good thing Sunny had plenty to go around. The wares from a local farm were all the rage with her guests. Once she saw that most of the five-star reviews mentioned “the delicious local foods on hand,” she knew she had to step up her game to keep people coming back every year while referring their friends to her when they were in the area. The B&B industry wasn’t as booming in the days of people renting out their homes, but Sunny Croker knew how to combine her love of countryside hospitality with small town individuality. People who came to Paradise Valley wanted a proper experience. They loved the kitschy décor and the well-maintained grounds that allowed them to go hiking, partake in some light gardening, or use the scenery as inspiration for their next artistic endeavor. The amount of painters and writers who came to stay a few days rivaled the tourists and extended families who needed extra bedrooms to use. It helped that Waterlily House was only a mile out of town, but looked like it was completely isolated in the Oregonian woods. Most people borrowed bikes from the garage for their excursions into town.
