Christmas Scavenger Hunt

For the first time in years, Belinda Phillips, who works for Jaspar Developments, is heading to her small hometown of Deerfield for Christmas to meet her best friend Faith Wheeler's fiancé, Jason Wilson, before their wedding planned for early in the New Year. Bel's ambitious, workaholic boyfriend Logan, who was supposed to accompany her, not only to spend the holidays with her and her widowed father Carl Phillips and meet Faith, but to see first-hand all about Bel's small-town life before she moved to the big city, delays his trip due to work. Bel has some last-minute work of her own in Deerfield, as one of Jaspar's biggest clients is looking to acquire some property there to redevelop, Bel who is to handle the transaction on her trip, a position as junior partner with the firm dependent on she closing the deal for said client. Her trip is complicated by two issues. First, she is pulled into participating in Deerfield's annual day-long Christmas scavenger hunt, partnered with her high-school sweetheart Dustin Cooper, for whom she still bears ill feeling as at the last minute 10 years ago, after graduating from high school, he reneged on his vow to follow her when she went away to college, which led to their break-up. The proceeds of the scavenger hunt this year will go toward trying to save the town's heritage textile mill and museum, arguably the town's most beloved property, where Dustin currently works. And second, Bel, who is already reluctant to tell anyone in town about the redevelopment plans of building upscale condos as most would disapprove, is dismayed to learn that the property under question in that of the mill and museum. While romantic sparks still remain between Bel and Dustin, what happens between them is affected by their scavenger-hunt day together with the possibility of certain items coming to light, not only the redevelopment proposal but for Bel the reason why Dustin chose not to go with her to college, and Logan arriving on the scene, somewhat unexpectedly as Bel assumed he would have a last-minute work excuse not to show.—Huggo