The town meeting had turned out better than expected. God help her, it had even been kind of fun as soon as the spotlight was off her. Marianne had gone into the next week thinking she had a handle on things. For the first time, all her hard work seemed to finally be paying off: Lockhart Bend was no longer resistant to her arrival, they were interested. The town was alive with the sort of buzz that the best marketing team in the world couldn't generate. Sabrina had taken on the tasks of finding other brewers to enter the competition, recruiting judges, and publicizing the event. Trent would be one, but the rest came from outside Lockhart Bend.

So why was she knee-deep in churned-up soil and on the brink of tears only a few days later?

"I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry." The five words left her lips in a steady stream as Marianne crouched in the dirt of her ruined garden. The tattered remains of every sprig she had managed to coax to life were strewn around her. The rosemary was an especially sore point. It was as if whatever-it-was that had done this had seized on her very first mistake and decided to shred it all into confetti to celebrate her failure.

"Marianne?" a voice called from the parking lot. "You out back?"

"Shit!" Marianne shot up and glanced about herself quickly. Trying to hide this mess before Trent found her was hopeless. She didn't even bother trying to tame her hair into something more presentable as he came around the backside of the Honky Tonk.

He was dressed in full police uniform today. His crisp khaki presentation was a stark contrast to her mud-stained, bedraggled appearance. Trent paused the moment he saw her, before letting his eyes drop to the wasted garden at her feet. He was carrying two steaming Styrofoam coffee cups in his hands; he set them on the porch railing. His expression was carefully neutral, almost passive.

But Marianne swore she could still see the hidden mirth behind his eyes. Did he really think this was funny? Her entire operation was at stake because she had made a misstep. Somehow, somewhere…she had missed something. And her oversight had cost her the life of every tiny little plant in her garden.

"Just tell me you know what did this, Trent. Please."

"Jackrabbits," he said with conviction. "Little fuckers get into everything over at Wildhorse. Sorry, I meant 'buggers.'"

"Rabbits did this?" Marianne cried. She gestured at the carnage that surrounded her. "Little fluffy rabbits?"

"Not little. Not fluffy," he corrected. "They're not the pet store kind, if that's what you're imagining."

He must have seen the dismay in her face, because he hurried on quickly. "You're not the only one struggling with them, Marianne, I promise you. They even get the better of Trevor on occasion, and he's been living out here his whole life. Hell, Grandma used to rave against them—she called them varmints, and she went after them almost indiscriminately with my Grandpa's shotgun until he took it away from her." Trent smiled at the memory, but Marianne couldn't bring herself to share in his nostalgia. "We just have to erect a fence around the garden. Maybe lay down some tarp."

"'We’?" She hated the way the word sounded when she echoed it: choked, angry, almost mocking. "Trent, this is my brewpub. My Aunt Celia entrusted her property to me. There is no we in this scenario."

"You have got to be kidding me," Trent hissed below his breath. "I'm not trying to invade your space. I'm not trying to plant a flag and take the Honky Tonk from you. I'm trying to offer you a solution to your problem. I've been living in Lockhart Bend all my life, Marianne—you don't think what I have to say, what knowledge I might have to offer, might be worth something?"

"You're right, Trent!" she fired back with a harsh laugh. She threw up her hands. "What do I know? I'm just a dumb out-of-towner who will never offer up an idea of her own that anyone will truly like. So the knowledge I have must be worthless!"

"Marianne, this isn't an attack on you! You couldn't have known this would happen!"

"But I could have prevented it!" Marianne cried. "If I had been prepared! I never wanted this damn garden, and I didn't commit to understanding what I was getting into…I didn't work hard enough! I got distracted by other things, and now look where it's got me." She hooked her toe beneath a clump of dirt and kicked it away from her. "This is a compost pile!"

"Maybe you were right not to prioritize the garden," Trent said. "Maybe it isn't worth getting this worked up over. Come on, Marianne. Relax." He reached for her shoulder, and Marianne flinched out of his way. She immediately regretted the move; she hadn't meant to do it. She had been operating on an old instinct long past its expiration date.

Trent withdrew his hand as if she had stung him. "Do you ever let down your guard?" he whispered heatedly. "It's not all bad letting others in to help you!"

"I don't need help!" Marianne exclaimed. "So stop trying to save me with your ideas! It's like you think I'm incapable of succeeding without your intervention."

"This isn't a failure." Trent gestured to the once-living wreckage strewn around her. "This is a setback. This is something that just happens in the world outside a brewing room. You can't measure out chance, or hope the right temperature will make your luck hold shape. Shit happens. This is something you can fix—and you don't have to do it alone."

Tattered shoots, wilted plant sprouts, and turned dirt sure as hell didn't look like a roaring success to Marianne. She ran a hand through her snarled hair as she took it all in again, trying to see it from his perspective. "You must think I'm a control freak," she said.

Trent surprised her by removing his hat and stepping into the carnage with her. "Thought it didn't matter to you what I think," he murmured. Marianne glanced up at him. The look was meant to be fleeting, to take in any details of his expression and divine the emotion behind his words. She had gotten good at doing that with Simon toward the end…or so she had thought.

But their eyes held, and Marianne found she didn't want to look away from Trent. She didn't want to have to tackle everything on her own. "I never used to be like this." She didn't mean to say the words out loud.

"I like you just fine the way you are," Trent replied. "Hell, I more than like you. I can't stop thinking about you."

"I haven't been sleeping." Now that the floodgates had opened, her own confessions came pouring out. "Knowing you're right next door."

"That makes two of us."

"Maybe I should move out."

"Maybe you should stop talking."

Trent dropped his hat and wrapped her in his arms. Marianne pushed up onto her toes to meet him, her own arms lacing around his neck, her fingers taking hold of his short black hair as best they could as Trent ducked his head and caught her mouth with his.

The kiss was wet and hot and forceful. It was everything that had kept Marianne awake late into the night, restless and bothered; it was every intangible and unattainable fantasy she had entertained about Trent in one fell swoop. There was no cherry lip balm to tease her taste buds this time. Instead she savored the sheer heat of him, the commanding pressure, the strength of his lust for her conveyed in every insistent inch of his kiss.

His tongue spread her lips and thrust past her teeth. She threaded her own tongue along the length of his and enjoyed the combative dance. Marianne had forgotten how much she absolutely loved kissing, and she was determined now to make up for lost time.

The tension that had ruled her body since moving to Lockhart Bend was fast easing out of her. She hadn't ever imagined that Sheriff Wild would have anything to do with it, but he did. A tingling warmth flooded her all the way to her bones, replacing all the cold, brittle anxiety that had plagued her since day one at the brewpub.

Trent's hand came up to cup the back of her head, and Marianne sighed with bliss as he carried her down into the dirt. She didn't spare a thought for the garden or the filth that was already attaching itself to her arms, her legs, her hair; she didn't let her thoughts wander to jackrabbits and how she might evict them. She thought only of Trent's warm weight shifting atop her and the way his taller form settled so perfectly against her own when they were horizontal.

Just as she had imagined it would.

It was over too soon. One minute their lips were in complete collusion, and Trent's fingers were sliding up beneath her shirt, and the next moment he was pulling himself back off her and rising. Marianne blinked at the sudden reversal. She yearned for him on a deep, instinctive level. She had been about to let him take her right then and there if he wanted—parsley and sage and rosemary be damned.

"C'mon." He grabbed her hand and hauled her up out of the dirt. Her head was spinning so wildly in the aftermath of their make-out session that she was grateful for the assistance.

"What? Where?" Marianne genuinely couldn't remember if she had missed something he said. Trent only shook his head.

"You need a break," he insisted. "I know you don't want to admit it, but it's true. I'm taking you out."

Her pulse fluttered at his offer. She wished she could physically tamp her heart back down and tell it not to get so excited. How long had it been since anyone made her feel this way?

Since Simon. Since the beginning, when things had been good…or at least, she had still been in the dark.

"Out where?" she asked. She already figured it was a useless question, but she may as well try.

"I'll tell you, but you have to get in the car first. Come on," Trent said as he pulled away from her and walked back toward the parking lot. "I'll take you home to change."

Marianne followed, her curiosity brimming over despite herself. The disastrous garden was all but forgotten; she could begin replanting tomorrow, when there wasn't a sexy sheriff around to distract her with baffling riddles.