"No," I agreed, keeping my voice light and pleasant, letting amusement curl at the edges of it. I tilted my head, studying him the way I'd study an interesting tarot spread. "I didn't."
Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy with things unsaid. Most people would have rushed to fill it—nervous chatter, awkward small talk, anything to break the tension. I wasn't most people. I let the silence sit. Let it grow. I watched the way his jaw tightened, the way his hands flexed at his sides like he didn't know what to do with them.
He was uncomfortable. Fighting some internal battle I could only guess at.
Good.
"I'm looking for apple brandy," I said finally, taking pity on him. Or maybe just getting bored. "Something aged. My client's husband was apparently very particular about his brandy, and she wants to honor that for his memorial."
Something shifted in those dark eyes. His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch—relief, maybe, at having a task to focus on. Something concrete instead of whatever was happening between us.
"How aged?" He moved past me toward the counter, giving me a wide berth. At least two feet of space between us, like he was afraid of what might happen if he got too close. His scentwashed over me as he passed—moonshine and cedar, sharp and warm all at once. I caught myself breathing deeper and made myself stop.
"Old as you've got." I followed him, leaning against the counter to watch him work. "Mr. Landry died at eighty-three. I figure anything younger than him would be an insult."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. He ducked behind the counter and started pulling out bottles, examining labels, handling each one with surprising gentleness for hands that size. I watched his hands while he worked. Massive, scarred across the knuckles, calluses on his palms from years of labor. But careful, too. Precise. The kind of hands that knew their own strength and chose to be gentle anyway.
Interesting, I thought for the third time. I was going to have to find a new word. He emerged with a bottle that looked like it had been dipped in dust, the glass dark with age, the label handwritten in a spidery script that definitely wasn't his.
"1962." He set it on the counter between us like an offering. "My grandfather's recipe. My grandmother's handwriting."
I picked up the bottle, turning it over in my hands. The weight of it felt significant—not just glass and liquid, but history. Someone's life work, distilled down and preserved. The label was careful, each letter formed with obvious pride.
When I pulled the cork, the scent that rose up made my eyes flutter closed involuntarily. Apples, yes—rich and sweet. But also vanilla and oak and something that reminded me of autumn leaves burning. Warmth and comfort and home, all wrapped up in amber liquid.
"Beautiful," I murmured, and meant it. "This is someone's whole heart in a bottle." The silence that followed was different than before. Charged in a new way. I opened my eyes and found him staring at me. But something had changed in his expression—a crack in that stoic facade, something raw and hungry underneath. Like I'd said something that mattered. Like I'd seen something he hadn't expected anyone to see.
"How much?" I asked, reaching for my wallet. My voice came out steadier than I felt. He named a price that was probably too low for something this old, this special. I didn't argue—I wasn't stupid—just counted out the bills and laid them on the counter.
He reached for the money.
Our fingers brushed.
The shock of it ran up my arm like lightning, hot and sharp. My breath caught. His hand jerked back like he'd been burned, a low sound rumbling from his chest—almost subsonic, more vibration than noise. For one second, I saw the control slip. His pupils dilated until his eyes were nearly black. His nostrils flared, pulling in my scent. The muscles in his forearms tensed like he was physically holding himself back from reaching for me.
Then the walls came back up. His expression smoothed out, controlled and distant, and he carefully gathered the bills without touching my hand again. I took my time tucking the bottle into my bag, letting him collect himself. Letting him think I hadn't noticed.
Oh, Harper Fontenot. What secrets are you keeping behind those dark eyes?
"Thank you, Mr. Fontenot." I slung the bag over my shoulder and headed for the door, my sandals clicking against the wooden floor. "Your grandfather had good taste. And good hands."
I paused at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe, and looked back over my shoulder. He hadn't moved. Was still standing behind the counter, hands braced against the wood like he needed it to hold him up. Those dark eyes tracked me like I was something precious and terrifying all at once.
"You should talk more," I said, letting a smile curl my lips—slow, knowing, just a little bit wicked. "I bet you have interesting things to say. When you're not too busy brooding."
I walked out into the golden afternoon light before he could respond. The cowbell clanged behind me like a period at the end of a sentence. I could feel his gaze on me all the way to my truck. Through the window as I climbed in. Following me down the dirt road until the orchards swallowed me up and I disappeared from sight.
Only then did I let out the breath I'd been holding.
"Well." I looked over at the bottle of brandy riding shotgun beside me, my heart beating faster than it had any right to. "That was unexpected."
I thought about dark eyes and scarred hands and a voice like gravel. The way he'd given me space, careful not to get too close. The hunger I'd glimpsed when his control slipped. The way he'd saidmy grandmother's handwritinglike the words cost him something. The way he smelled like moonshine—potent and dangerous and warm.
An Alpha, alone on that beautiful property. Working with his hands. Probably had been for years, by the look of him. Touch-starved and wanting and trying so damn hard not to show it.
Poor thing, I thought, and meant it more than I expected to. He wasn't worth pursuing. Not right now. I had Mrs. Landry's ritual to prepare for, and Gumbo to feed, and a hundred other things that demanded my attention more than some silent, brooding Alpha with pretty eyes and his grandfather's recipes.
But I found myself smiling all the way home anyway. When I finally pulled up to the cabin and Gumbo surfaced in the shallows to greet me, I found myself saying, "I met someone interesting today." The words came out before I could stop them, spilling into the humid evening air like a confession.
