After making the biggest mistake of her life by heading to California with a loser boyfriend and leaving her sister Emma to clean up after her mess, Jen Jameson returns to her hometown, determined to make things right – even though paying back the debt that she owes her new brother-in-law means that she’ll be eating ramen noodles for the foreseeable future. Most of her family sees her as flighty and irresponsible, but Jen decides that it’s time to ditch that image and return to an actual career path. And she’s having nothing more to do with men. Those walls she’s built are up for a reason, and there’s no chance that she’s letting anyone in again. Well, except for Mussolini, the stray cat who shows up at her door one night and immediately claims her heart. And her couch. And her bed. And her clean laundry.
When Matt Manning first meets Jen in the hallway of the local hospital, he immediately sees past the hard shell she shows to the world. As a minister, he wants to help her overcome whatever has made her so prickly, but he’s got to fight his own feelings as a normal red-blooded man to get there, particularly since Jen is so spectacularly wary of him.
As Jen slowly finds her way back from the cynicism and doubt that has plagued her for years, Matt’s consistent belief in her, a newfound relationship with her now pink-headed Gran, a surprising friendship with a willful teenage girl, and Mussolini’s demands for world domination (starting with Jen’s house) all may combine to eventually knock down those carefully constructed walls – if Jen can find the courage to fight for her own future.