When a surprise October blizzard hits Panama, Vermont, blanketing the sleepy little town with several feet of snow, it creates a scene so tranquil no one suspects the tragedy to come, least of all Bree Miller. Slipping and sliding as she walks home from the diner where she works, she barely has time to notice the runaway truck skidding toward her until it is too late. She awakens in the hospital, remembering little of the accident or the hours thereafter, except for a very bright light, a beatific smile, and a mystical nonvoice granting her three wishes.

Tom Gates is the accident's only witness. New to town, he is a bestselling author who turned his back on his family for the sake of fortune and fame. Now, rejected by both family and friends, he is in Panama to rethink his life. Bree becomes his cause.

For self-sufficient, independent Bree, life changes dramatically. Suddenly within her grasp are those things she always wanted most -- a home, a soul mate, a family. But there is unfinished business: the mother who abandoned Bree when she was an infant, the family Tom misses deeply, the child doctors say Bree can never have. And there are still those three wishes.

But are those wishes real? And if they are, at what price? [close]