Sugar Mountain, Colorado is geography’s Sybil. One minute it’s Mayberry: full of good folks who eat dinner at six o’clock and cheerfully yield the right of way. The next it’s the town without pity, populated by small-minded grudge-holding bores who would bring back the stockade if they could. This is the setting for Three Wishes, which suffers from many inconsistencies.

This is the third in the Men of Sugar Mountain series. What ties the stories together is Teddy, a ten-year-old boy raised by three women – Zoe, Paige and Kate. Teddy doesn’t know which is his biological mother or the identity of his father. Three Wishes is Zoe’s story. Town gossip has it that Teddy was the result of the night Zoe spent with Winfield Skylar in his Chevy Impala. Win split soon after and Zoe’s been trying her darndest to shake off the scandal and appear respectable again.

When Win returns he’s as welcome in Sugar Mountain as Marilyn Manson would be. If Zoe is scandalous, Win is super-duper scandalous: he dropped out of high school, flaunts his long hair and tattoo, and has no respect for his hometown. He’s come back to cash in his part of the family business, but when he sees Zoe, he sets about acquiring her. At first he’s just a typical randy rogue, then suddenly and very early in the book he casts himself in the role of potential husband. Zoe refuses Win’s proposals again and again and again. The townspeople pop up from time to time to pry, disapprove, and say charming homespun things like, “Zoe’s a spinster, for crying out loud! She’s past her sell-by date.”

Zoe is twenty-eight years old.

Win and Zoe are not a couple to cheer for. In the beginning Win is your generic bad boy who plays by his own rules, but at least he has a spine. To win Zoe he cuts his hair, puts on a suit, and tries to shoehorn himself into Sugar Mountain society. No one, male or female, should overhaul his or her personality to please someone else. Zoe is the type of character who tells Win she’s not interested from one side of her mouth, and kisses him with the other. She also praises her community endlessly, even though a lot of the people treat her like crap.

This book could have used more internal dialogue. For me, half the fun of a love story is being privy to the process of two people falling for each other. When Win proposed, I had to go back and see if I’d missed something. Not only was it completely out of character, but there was also no indication that his feelings ran any deeper then friendship and attraction. You know that Zoe is both annoyed and attracted to Win, but nothing more until the end of the book, when he takes off his shirt – and then presto! Insta-love. Just in time for them to sleep together.

The one thing that held my interest was the explanation of Teddy’s lineage, which is unexpected but underdeveloped. The other two books might give me more insight, but I can’t bring myself to return to Sugar Mountain.