Heart of the Holidays

A few weeks before Christmas, Wall Streeter Samantha Wallace is starting what she believes is her dream job with Castleton Investments where she has been given the freedom to make investments with an array of innovative start-ups. On her first day, she discovers something that not only makes her quit that job, but also makes her rethink her relationship with her serious boyfriend, Will, who only a few days earlier she thought was going to ask her to marry him. Without telling her widowed mother Tammy the reason why, Sam decides to head back to her small hometown of Crawleigh in western New York for Christmas, it where she will regroup and put out feelers for other Wall Street jobs. This trip will be the first time she not only will have returned home for Christmas since she moved to NYC eight years ago, the move in she wanting to make a difference in the world, but returned home, period. The primary reason for not returning before this time is not wanting to see her high school sweetheart, coffee shop/bakery owner ex-boyfriend Noah Fitzpatrick due to the nature of their break-up when she left. Running into Noah in such a small town is inevitable, but is fostered by Tammy and other long time townsfolk, such as married Bob and Val, in believing Sam and Noah as a couple were meant to be. Their reunion is a strained one, but they both realize that the strain is due to underlying feelings existing between the two. As they and many of the townsfolk work on providing for the food bank for the Christmas season, Sam may see Crawleigh in a different light and not the town she was so anxious to leave eight years ago. A permanent Sam/Noah reunion is threatened by the return of Will and news from him of what Sam once truly did believe was her dream job in NYC.—Huggo