While the United States and Canada are engaged in a war of
words over a proposed American base in the North, widowed U.S. Vice President
Cameron Austin travels to Canada for a weekend of R&R at a fishing lodge
near the town of McPine. There he meets Laurie Cosner and both like what they
see. The Vice President invites Laurie to Washington and introduces her to the
President who is taken aback that Austin has seen fit to get involved with a
Canadian while the climate of negotiations between the two countries is far
from amicable. Austin returns to McPine to see Laurie despite its challenges.
He arranges for Laurie's daughter, Sarah, a talented pianist, to perform for
dignitaries in Washington. Pictures of the event are seen by Neal Landau in
Florida, Sarah's biological father. He denied being the father, and Laurie
married a man who raised Sarah as his own until his death. When the President
visits Canada to mend political fences he is met by protesters, including Laurie's brother Mike which is a source of panic for Laurie. When Mike's girlfriend, April, gets embroiled in the planning of a violent
demonstration Mike informs the authorities, and when explosives go
off, April is killed. When Laurie learns that Neal Landau wants to see his
daughter before dying, she arranges for Sarah to study music in
England and breaks off her engagement to the Vice President using the death of
April and its ramifications as an excuse. When Landau dies Laurie is
freed of her past, but the wheels she has set in motion will not stop;
nevertheless the Vice President catches up to her. They eventually marry in a
private ceremony away from Washington to which the President is not invited.
The next day, Austin informs the President that he will not be seeking the
presidency even if he is the front runner, but things may change when he becomes a father for the first time.