DEB MARSHALL loses her job right before Christmas, her favorite time of the year. She decides not to finish her Christmas shopping because of her sudden unemployment but her mother DORIS MARSHALL encourages her to do so. While looking for a parking space in a mall parking lot, she slams her car into the car of TOM BRENNAN, who owns an employment agency. Instead of berating her, he is moved by her situation -- she is the sole supporter of her arthritic-ridden mother -- and immediately attracted to her.
He offers to go shopping with her and pay for her gifts. While concerned that he simply may be trying to take advantage of her in a vulnerable state, she accepts his offer because of his kindness and her mutual attraction to him. After shopping they have dinner and drinks and fall instantly in love. He is a perfect gentleman the entire evening and when she arrives home, her mother tells her that she is insane for risking getting raped.
Deb and Tom meet the next day to discuss her finding a new job but, more importantly. their budding relationship. She invites him to Christmas Eve dinner without telling her mother. Upon his arrival, he is greeted with hostility from her mother, who makes an outrageous request that he pay for the three of them to go to Hawaii to spend the holidays with his parents.
Surprisingly, he accepts, convincing Doris that his feelings for her daughter are indeed genuine. His likability and obvious affection for her daughter overcome Doris’ deep reservations. He, in turn, finds the mother's sense of humor to be delightful and their accidental Christmas romance, in the spirit of the holidays, apparently has a feel-good ending.
Or not.
Tom’s parents are killed by sharks on Christmas Day. Their will, he discovers, stipulates that he inherits 200 million dollars if he is married before they are buried. If not, the money goes to charity. Tom asks Deb to immediately marry him, but she resists at first, feeling their marriage would be a financial transaction. She relents, and they are married.
A few weeks into their marriage Deb’s car T-bones STEVE’S and she instantly falls in love with him. Tom soon discovers her cheating on him and files for divorce after a month of marriage. Doris is appalled by her daughter’s infidelity, even after Deb explains that she is suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Stockholm syndrome from both accidents. She fell instantly in love with Tom and then Steve because of a psychological phenomenon in which drivers express empathy, sympathy. positive feelings and intense sexual desires toward their fellow accident victims.
Tom overhears their conversation, and still in love with her, asks her to drop Steve and return to him. She says Steve has a hypnotic hold on him and she can’t help herself. But Tom persuades her to come home with him. Until Steve walks in the room. Deb nervously glances back and forth at both of them as if she were watching a tennis match and then finally stares straight ahead -- looking totally conflicted.
