Cool, gracious, international relations attorney Whitney Benedict hasn't completely given up on marriage, but she does have a checklist of qualities for the man of her dreams: affluence, intelligence, good looks and absolutely no prior baggage.

So when she travels to California to make an offer on behalf og the Austrian government for Gabriel Mendoza's famous Lipizzan horses, no one is more surprised than Whitney at the effect Gabe, his children, his stepchildren, his ex-wife, his mother and the rest of his zany family have on her heart.

When an accident prolongs her stay, she settles into the routines of the "hacienda" with every intention of organizing this dysfunctional family, only to find that horses and children have a way of rearranging the best-laid plans and that a checklist isn't always the final measure for happiness.