"Lead the way, Fontenot." I squeezed his hand, letting him guide me toward the door, my heart already beating faster in anticipation. The main production floor was dim, lit only by a few security lights that cast long shadows between the copper stills and oak barrels. Harper led me past all of it, through a door I hadn't noticed on my first visit, into a back room that felt like stepping into another world entirely.
"Oh." The word escaped me before I could stop it, my feet freezing on the threshold, my eyes wide as I tried to take it all in.
It was smaller than the main floor, more intimate. Rows of bottles lined the walls—not the commercial stuff with the fancy labels, but hand-labeled jars and unlabeled bottles, experimental batches and private reserves. Aging barrels were stacked against one wall, their oak staves dark with years of whiskey soaking into the grain. Above it all, faded photographs hung in mismatched frames—generations of Fontenots, their faces stern and proud, watching over their legacy.
"This is where I come to think." Harper said quietly, moving to stand beside me, his hand still wrapped around mine, his shoulder brushing against my arm. "When I need to remember who I am. Where I come from." He paused, his jaw working like he was searching for words. "No one comes back here. Not even the workers. This is just for family." He finished, his dark eyes meeting mine with a weight that told me exactly what he was saying.
"Harper." My voice came out rough, thick with emotion I hadn't expected to feel, my fingers tightening around his. "Are you sure?" I asked, needing to hear him say it, needing to know this wasn't just a gesture but a promise.
"I'm sure." He said simply, lifting our joined hands to press a kiss to my knuckles, his beard scratching softly against my skin. "You're pack…or will be one day. That makes you family." His dark eyes were steady on mine, certain and sure in a way that made my heart ache.
I blinked rapidly, refusing to cry in the middle of what was supposed to be a romantic evening, and turned my attention to the room around us. "Tell me about them." I pointed to the photographs, desperate for a distraction from the emotion clogging my throat. "Your family." I clarified, watching him follow my gesture.
Harper was quiet for a moment, his gaze moving over the faces in the frames with something like reverence. Then he released my hand and moved to the wall, his fingers brushing the edge of one photograph—a stern-faced man with Harper's dark eyes, standing beside a copper still that looked ancient even in the faded image.
"This is my great-great-grandfather. Started the distillery in 1892." He said, his deep voice soft with memory, his massive hand gentle against the frame. "Lost everything in Prohibition, rebuilt from nothing after it ended. Fontenots don't quit." Hemoved to the next photograph—a couple this time, the woman small and fierce-looking, the man twice her size with a familiar set to his jaw. "My grandparents. Papaw and Mémère. They raised me after my parents died." His voice caught slightly on the word, his hand dropping to his side.
"How old were you?" I asked softly, moving to stand beside him, my hand finding his again without conscious thought, our fingers lacing together like they belonged that way.
"Seven." He said it flatly, like a fact rather than a tragedy, but I could see the old grief still lingering in the tightness around his eyes. "Car accident. I don't remember much. Just that one day I had parents and the next I didn't." He shrugged, the motion stiff and uncomfortable. "Papaw and Mémère took me in. Raised me like their own. Taught me everything I know about whiskey, about the land, about being a Fontenot." His thumb traced circles on my hand, the gesture seemingly unconscious, soothing himself as much as me.
"They sound wonderful." I leaned into his side, offering warmth and comfort without words, feeling some of the tension ease from his massive frame at the contact.
"They were." A ghost of a smile crossed his features, softening the stern lines of his face. "Papaw was quiet, like me. Could go whole days without saying more than a handful of words. But when he spoke, it meant something." He paused, his dark eyes distant with memory. "Mémère was the opposite. Talked enough for both of them. Could charm the devil himself if she set her mind to it." His smile grew, something warm and fond lighting his expression. "She used to say I got Papaw's silence and her stubbornness. Said it was a dangerous combination." He let out a soft huff that might have been a laugh.
"I think she was right." I grinned up at him, bumping my shoulder against his arm, watching his lips twitch in response."The stubbornness, anyway. I've yet to see you be charming." I teased.
"Give me time." He rumbled, and the look in his dark eyes made my stomach flip, heat creeping up my neck at the promise in his words. He led me to a corner of the room where an old wooden bar stood against the wall, scarred and worn with age, clearly hand-built with love rather than precision. Behind it, bottles lined the shelves—the good stuff, I realized, the ones too precious to sell.
"Sit." Harper gestured to one of the barstools, moving behind the bar with a familiarity that spoke of countless hours spent in this exact position. "I want to teach you something." He said, pulling two crystal glasses from beneath the counter, setting them on the worn wood with a soft clink.
"I'm not much of a drinker." I admitted, settling onto the stool, watching his hands—so massive they could probably crush the glasses without effort—move with surprising delicacy as he selected a bottle from the shelf. "Wine gives me headaches. Beer tastes like bread water. And the one time I tried tequila, I woke up in a bathtub full of ice with no memory of how I got there." I confessed, watching his eyebrows climb toward his hairline.
"That sounds like a story." He said, pouring a measure of amber liquid into each glass, his dark eyes glinting with curiosity and something that might have been amusement.
"One I'll never tell." I accepted the glass he slid toward me, my fingers wrapping around the cool crystal, lifting it to examine the whiskey within, the amber liquid catching the dim light. "So. Teach me." I said, meeting his eyes over the rim of the glass, watching the way his expression softened at my willingness to learn.
"First, you look at it." He lifted his own glass, holding it up to the dim light, watching the whiskey glow like captured sunset. "See the color? That's the barrel talking. The longer it ages,the darker it gets. This one's been sitting for seven years." He explained, his voice dropping into something almost reverent, his dark eyes soft as he studied the liquid.
I mimicked his gesture, holding my glass up, watching the way the light played through the amber depths. "It's beautiful." I said softly, meaning it, surprised by how much there was to see in something I'd always dismissed as just alcohol.
"Now you smell it." He lowered his glass, bringing it to his nose, his eyes closing as he inhaled slowly. "Not too deep at first. Just let it come to you. Tell me what you notice." He instructed, his voice low and steady, his dark lashes fanning against his cheeks.
I closed my own eyes, breathing in the scent of the whiskey, letting it fill my senses. "Vanilla." I said after a moment, surprised by how clearly I could identify it. "And smoke. Like a campfire on a cold night." I opened my eyes to find him watching me, something warm and approving in his gaze that made my cheeks flush.
"Good." The single word came out low and warm, carrying more praise than a whole speech from anyone else, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners, his massive frame leaning slightly toward me across the bar. "What else?" He pressed, his forearms coming to rest on the worn wood, bringing his face closer to mine, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes.
I inhaled again, searching for the subtler notes beneath the obvious ones. "Something sweet. Like... caramel? Or toffee?" I guessed, uncertain, watching his lips curve into a real smile—rare and beautiful and all for me.
"Both." He nodded, a look of quiet satisfaction crossing his features as he reached out to adjust my grip on the glass, his calloused fingers warm against mine, lingering longer than necessary. "The sugars in the wood caramelize when we charthe barrel. That's what gives bourbon its sweetness." His thumb brushed across my knuckles, sending shivers up my arm, his dark eyes tracking the movement like he couldn't quite believe he was allowed to touch me. "Now taste." He said, his voice dropping lower, rougher, something hungry flickering in his gaze.
I took a small sip, letting the whiskey sit on my tongue, and my eyes went wide at the complexity of it—the vanilla and smoke I'd smelled, yes, but also the sweetness, and a warmth that spread through my chest like a hug from the inside. "Oh." I breathed, opening my eyes to find him watching me with an intensity that made my pulse quicken. "Harper, that's..." I trailed off, unable to find words for something that good.
"That's Mémère's last batch." He said quietly, his deep voice rough with emotion, his dark eyes bright in a way I'd never seen before. "She helped me make it, the year before she passed. Taught me how to char the barrel just right, how to know when the mash was ready." He picked up his own glass, swirling the whiskey slowly, watching the light play through it. "She always said the best whiskey was made with love. That you could taste the difference." He took a sip, his eyes closing briefly, his expression going soft with memory and grief and love all tangled together.
"You miss her." I set down my glass and reached across the bar, covering his massive hand with my smaller one, feeling the tension in his fingers, the way they curled around mine like he was holding onto something precious.
"Every day." He admitted, the words coming easier than I'd expected, pulled from somewhere deep by my touch or my presence or maybe just the safety of this room and this moment. "She was the last. After she died, I was alone. The last Fontenot." His jaw tightened, the muscle flexing beneath his beard. "I scattered her ashes in her herb garden. The one Papaw plantedfor her when they got married." He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through mine, holding on tight.
