Light Up The Night: A Small Town, Opposites Attract, Found Family Romance

Three Rivers is no ordinary small town; here, the unexpected is commonplace and hospitality is a way of life.

Everybody in Three Rivers knows who I am. Say the name Riley Crowe to ten locals, and you'll get ten different opinions of me. Some people know me as Felix's younger brother, others as the ex-con, others yet as Three Rivers' resident himbo.

I've made a LOT of mistakes, and one seriously massive mistake that changed the course of my life...and not for the better. I don't like talking about it, even with my brother or my best friends, Sheriff Cole Mannix and Cody Nyx. Yeah, I've worked my ass off to redeem myself. But yet, it feels like the mistake I made all those years ago will always haunt me.

If I'm being brutally honest with myself, it's one reason why I've spent my adult life avoiding relationships.

But seeing Bear find love, and then Felix, of all people? Gets a man thinking, y'know? Wondering. Wishing. Not exactly hoping, but...dreaming, maybe.

The last thing in the entire world I could have ever expected is a woman like Cadence Creswell, MD.

Mind-bogglingly intelligent, strange, fascinating, and drop-dead gorgeous, Cadence is a licensed medical doctor at 24, a medical missionary hell-bent on bringing her emergency medicine expertise to war-torn South Sudan, despite the danger. She's like no one I've ever met. She doesn't seem to give a crap about my past-legal or personal. She sees past the jokes and rough exterior, the playboy facade and the ex-con shell.

I'm just not sure I'm good enough for her.

* * *

I have been an outsider my entire life. I have never fit in anywhere. I have never had a true friend. I have never had a boy show romantic interest in me.

I was supposed to merely pass through Three Rivers on my way to secure the last of my funding for the mission trip I am planning to South Sudan; as a medical doctor specializing in emergency medicine and mass casualty events, I feel called to use my skills and training to provide medical care to the war-ravaged innocents of that country.

And then? My funding falls through, and I am stranded in Three Rivers, alone, foot-sore, heartbroken, and out of options.

I am rescued by the unlikeliest of heroes: Riley Crowe. He is devastatingly handsome, funny, kind, sincere, generous...and rather rough around the edges, it is true. He claims to be not good enough for me, which is funny to me because I have always felt that way myself-that no one could want me. In Riley, I find a man who sees me for ME, the woman.

Not the doctor, not the weird, autistic girl-just a girl. He is attracted to me, and makes me want things I never thought I could have.

He changes my life and makes me see myself in a new way. The real question is, can he learn to see HIMSELF in a new way?

Does redemption flow in small towns like Three Rivers?