Emma Jameson is pretty darn happy with her life. She has a good job, a loving family, a decent social life, and a dog who simultaneously adores her and keeps her yard free of squirrels. But with the help of fate and her irresponsible older sister, she gets tossed into the middle of a mess, and comes out on the other side married to Mason, a stranger who makes a cement block look emotional. And let's face it, while her new husband is hot, that doesn't even begin to make up for the fact that he doesn't like dogs, and shows an equal aversion to all things messy and disordered. Too bad Emma named her beloved dog Chaos for a reason, and if she's moving into her new husband's house, the dog is moving in with her. While Emma is learning to live with an incredibly sexy but detached man, she's also faced with the disappointment of her martini-swilling grandmother (who dreamed of a wedding for Emma with a white dress and an open bar), a disapproving mother-in-law (who is convinced that Emma is a heartless gold-digger), and the kid next door who desperately wants to be a vet but finds himself next-in-line to take over his father's meat-distribution company. And Mason, God bless him, is slowly learning that order and serenity are less appealing than he'd once thought, particularly when love and Chaos are on offer.

Chase Hamilton is a wealthy, handsome, and completely disillusioned businessman. After realizing that his last three serious girlfriends all dated him for his money, he's determined to meet a woman who has no idea how rich he really is. In the meantime, though, he'll keep dating Charlene Magill, a woman who comes from a wealthy family herself, but is about as sharp as a bowling ball. Lena Magill is the director of the local homeless shelter. Born to wealth, she turned her back on the life her father expected her to lead (i.e., marry rich man, have babies, join committees, drink self into oblivion out of boredom), and chose her own path, which includes her own job, her own apartment, and her neurotic dog, Winston. Lena still keeps one foot in the world of high society to appease her father, but it's not out of any love for the company, the expectations, or the scintillating conversation. And for now, she'll keep dating Chase, even though he's as cold as stone, and thinks that she has the brains of a mouse. It keeps her father out of her hair, and prevents him from setting her up with yet another man who has a thick wallet, but no personality. When Chase hatches the idea of volunteering at a local charity to meet women, and when he shows up at a local homeless shelter, the last person he expects to run into is Charlene. Especially a feisty, dusty, and very dedicated Charlene, who is equally shocked to find the icy and formal Chase Hamilton standing in her shelter's basement. And wearing jeans, no less. Enter two meddling grandfathers, Lena's controlling father and frequently inebriated stepmother, an attempt at a blackmailed marriage, Chase's gold-digger-dating baggage out the wazoo, and a doozy of a misunderstanding, and it's a wonder that the shelter is still standing, that Winston doesn't have a doggy stroke, or that these two crazy people finally have a chance at love.