Into The Light

Does redemption flow in small towns like Three Rivers?

I spent a decade in prison for a crime I didn't commit.

Before I was released on parole, I was part of a work-release program in a little town in Michigan called Three Rivers. So, when I'm finally paroled, there's nowhere else I want to be but here in Three Rivers, rebuilding my life from scratch.

I expect life to be hard; it always has been, for me.

What I don't expect?

Noelle Harper. Short, curvy, gorgeous, and way too sweet and innocent for the likes of me. She's full of light, love, understanding, compassion, and affection-things I know nothing about.

I don't expect her to crash into the new life I'm building, turn everything upside down, and see things in me I've never seen in myself.

I don't expect her to save me. To see beyond my past and show me how to reach for more-how to love.

* * *

My life has not gone the way I thought it would.

I'm a small-town girl next door, Three Rivers born and raised. I'm a good girl from a conservative home-I didn't date my high school sweetheart, I courted him...with chaperones. I didn't so much as hold his hand until we married right out of high school.

I expected to be a pastor's wife, a mom, and a member of the only community I've ever known. I expected my life to be simple and predictable.

What I don't expect?

To discover that my husband was cheating on me with not one, not two, but three church skanks, while acting like my eager desire for a healthy marital sex life was something I should be ashamed of.

I don't expect a man like Bear. A veritable mountain of a man with an unlikely name, long red hair, and a giant red beard. A man with a criminal record. A man who sees a side of me no one, not my family, and certainly not my husband ever saw. A man who brings the real Noelle Harper to life.

I never expected to fall in love with a gigantic, quiet, rough-around-the-edges man with a gentle spirit and a misunderstood past.

But in Three Rivers, the unexpected seems to travel faster than the town gossip.