This Christmas is the first in five that Marliee has returned home to Jamestown, OR since she moved to Miami, where she in the interim has completed her residency and opened her own veterinary clinic with her boyfriend of two years, Miles, the only person she knows who is even more driven than her. That drive has its downside in their relationship as they spend more time as business partners than as romantic partners, he, who at the last second, decides not to accompany her to Oregon in having too much work to finish before Christmas. This decision may show Marilee that their relationship has finally hit the end of the road. In Jamestown, Marilee does not expect but does run into her old firefighter boyfriend Zachary in assuming that he would be away for Christmas as he has been for the past several years. While a common work ethic brought Marilee and Miles together, that peripherally is what tore Marilee and Zach apart in he having resisted any change in his life, especially his personal life. What originally did bring them together was their mutual love of cats, namely who "adopted" an initially reluctant Zach, a homeless one named Ambrose. So when Zach finds a box of nine abandoned kittens outside the firehall, he forgoes his Christmas getaway to tend to the kittens, including finding good homes for them. With the town's vet recently having retired, Marilee volunteers to assist Zach with this matter. In spending time together, Marilee and Zach can admit to themselves that there is still a spark between them, Zach who does not know how to show Marilee that he is now open to his life progressing. Factoring into into what happens between them includes Sam, the fire chief, imminently retiring, and Miles having his own thoughts if his and Marilee's relationship, both professional and personal, has truly ended.

In Boise, Idaho, Pat Godfrey and Margie Southworth were young sweethearts, which was particularly special to Margie because Pat's family was more like a real family than her own emotionally-distant one was. Margie's first job working for retailer Connor and Co. at their Oak Street store also felt like family, especially under her manager Willa. But when Pat moved to Hawaii immediately following high school for his dream of working in the outdoor-adventure business, Margie decided to stay in Boise. He asked her to go with him, but she thought he would only be there until he discovered his true life and career. Now 20 years later, right before Christmas, Margie is still working at Connor and Co., still in Boise but in their regional office as the VP of Marketing and Promotions; Willa is still her boss. Margie met her current boyfriend of six months, Scott, in the company; he worked in the field office 90 minutes away, so they've been doing the long-distance relationship thing. When Scott is brought into the regional office for training under Margie, they will get an opportunity to deepen their relationship in the probability that he is training for a job in the Boise office. Meanwhile, Pat, now divorced and the primary parent to adolescent sons PJ and John, has just sold his outdoor-adventure company in Hawaii for a job in Boise to be closer to his ex-wife Casey in San Francisco for the boys' sake, and to be closer to his now-widowed mother Lois, with whom they'll be living until they find something more permanent. Pat's job falls through so he scrambles to find another. He had planned to contact Margie in the New Year just as old friends, but fate seems to usurp Pat and they accidentally run into each other...again and again and again. While Lois believes their encounters are "Godwinks" at work telling them that they are meant to be together, which is the case if they listen to their hearts, their brains might be telling them something else. Pat feels his first priority is to find that job regardless of what that actually means in practical terms, and Margie feels the need to explore what a more-dedicated relationship with Scott entails, while both begin to believe that Scott being brought in for training at the Boise office means work changes for both of them, and not necessarily in a good way for Margie.