Claude Dean is a Cajun fisherman secluded and content in the Louisiana swamp, has no idea that the uptight city girl that he rescues from becoming gator bait, is Della Star, a famous super model sent down south to strike a pose in an alligator skin bikini. Della didn't want to take the job in the first place because she's allergic to mosquitoes and was on her way to Hawaii for vacation. But the magazine doubled her rate and her agent begged her to do it because she needs a vacation too, and promised it would be short and sweet. Della's current boyfriend, Rafel, a Calvin Klein underwear model, using her fame to boost his acting career, is not so happy when Della accepts the job. Rafel had plans to propose to Della in Hawaii, but Della wasn't planning on saying yes, because she never says yes, because she knows it's not true love. She wonders if she'll ever meet a man who loves her for who she really is under the make-up. When Della arrives in New Orleans, she is hounded by paparazzi as she gets into a waiting limo that takes her down the bayou to a boat launch where the impatient New York photographer is griping about losing the morning light. When he falls out of the boat and is chased to the other side of the bayou by a big alligator, Della is left stranded in a cypress tree at the mercy of the swamp and the gator treading the water beneath her, not realizing fate is intervening with her love life. Claude Dean arrives just in time to save Della when shes falls into his arms as his boat coasts underneath. Della quickly realizes the handsome Cajun, speaking broken English, doesn't know who she is. Maybe because her face is swelling from wasps when she bumped their nest on her way down. Then she notices the paparazzi have hitched a ride on a swamp tour boat to capture tabloid gold, so she asks Cajun Prince Charming if he could get her out of there before the reporters get a close-up. Claude Dean declines at first, thinking the city girl will be more trouble than it's worth -- she's probably involved with a Louisiana politician and that may explain the reporters. Then she offers him more money than he's made all week fishing, peaking his curiosity about what her real story is. So he leads the paparazzi on a wild boat chase through winding bayous until their boat gets bogged down in the marsh. Further in, his motor prop hits a stump and falls off, so he informs the uptight beauty that she will be stranded a little longer than anticipated, or at least until he fixes his motor. He paddles them to his cabin, and wines and dines her on frog legs and moonshine, and she finds herself falling for the self-sufficient man who could care less about fame and fortune, who believes he's already in paradise with waterfront property and as much to eat as he can catch. This leads to a complicated romance hot as cayenne, especially when Rafel decides to take advantage of the press coverage and takes the paparazzi along with him to find Della with the local Sheriff, thinking Della must be being held against her will for a ransom after a phone call was intercepted on Della's cell phone found in abandoned boat.