Besides, it was a short-term commitment. No chance of entanglements he didn’t need.
He straightened up, rubbing his lower back as he admired the newly refinished door. Historic restorations were his specialty, and being inside Juliette Gordon Low’s house again felt oddly comforting. No one would have guessed he was the original craftsman who carved and finished these doors over a hundred years ago.
Hand carving the trim had taken weeks back then; now he could see his hard work paid off. Other than needing to be sanded and protected with a new coat of stain, the doors were still in immaculate condition.
“They look amazing,” Jax enthused as she climbed down the ladder. Her dreadlocks were pulled back into a ponytail, and the fire in her dark eyes made him grateful he’d accepted her offer to apprentice with him.
She would be a damned fine designer someday.
Her bright grin lit up her face as she stopped beside him. “You do good work.”
“Thanks.” He wiped his hands on his jeans. “Couldn’t have gotten them rehung without your help. You still think you want to specialize in restoration design?”
She nodded. “For sure. And I happen to have a line on this amazing subcontractor to use for the carpentry projects.”
“You know where to find me.” Drake rubbed the back of his neck and bent to gather up his tools. “Thanks for your help with this one.”
Jax held up her right hand. “It was my honor,” she said, reciting the Girl Scout promise. She lowered it again and chuckled. “Cookie-selling champ of my troop back in the day.” She checked her cell phone and met his eyes. “Are we finished here?”
“Yeah.” He closed the ladder. “I can load up the tools. Thanks, Jax.”
“I’ll see you next weekend.” She spun on her heel, her footsteps thumping down the creaky old staircase, leaving him behind in blessed silence.
He collected his tools, scanning the empty rooms. Thousands of visitors from around the world walked through this house every year. They came for tours, to hear the history of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts.
He’d known her as Daisy, and he hadn’t aged a day since. Memories like that weighed heavy on him. Eternity could turn into an abyss if he allowed himself to remember all the mortals he cared about as lifetimes came and went.
He rubbed a hand down his face and shook his head. “Enough.”
Lately, he’d been second guessing his choice to take another drink from the Holy Grail, and being here, in this empty house full of ghosts from his past, wasn’t helping. He’d been the ship’s carpenter on the Sea Dog until the day she sank at the mouth of the Savannah River in 1795. The Holy Grail had been their final plunder, granting each of them immortality. Last year, when the spell started wearing off, the crew took one more swallow.
Maybe it would have been better to reject it. Too late now.
He carried his toolbox in one hand and his ladder under his other arm. He left the final invoice with the night manager downstairs and headed for his truck.
It might be time to try something new. Maybe over two hundred years of working with his hands was long enough. Caleb, their navigator, had pursued multiple college degrees. Drake could follow his path into academia. Anything to keep busy and take his mind off the years passing him by.
“Excuse me. Drake?”
He turned at the sound of a woman’s voice to find a face he would never forget. “Heather? What are you doing here?”
Heather Storrey was a sought-after medium in Savannah. He’d met her in person a few weeks ago during the showdown with the Serpent Society in the Bonaventure Cemetery. He’d never seen another woman like her, and that was saying something, since he’d been alive nearly two hundred and fifty years. Her pale skin glowed in the moonlight like a porcelain doll, and her bright, ice-blue eyes stared directly into his soul. She wore her long silver hair down tonight, tempting him to run his fingers through it.
She glanced up and down the street before crossing over from her parked car. Closer now, she met his eyes again. “You’re in danger.”
He followed her gaze down the darkened, empty road and raised a brow. “How so?”
“Please just take my word for it. We don’t know each other well, so you’re going to have to trust me when I say I’m not one for dramatics.” When he continued to stare, she rolled her eyes. “You’re never going to believe me if I try to explain.”
Tip of the iceberg. This woman might speak to the dead, but she would laugh in his face if he told her he’d lived through more than two centuries already, and he’d most likely be here for at least two more.
He placed his ladder into the bed of his truck and turned to face her. The determination in her gaze reminded him that, although she looked fragile, she possessed the heart of a warrior. She’d proven it the night they met. She’d nearly gotten herself killed trying to protect a federal agent in the Bonaventure Cemetery.
Drake cleared his throat. “Why don’t you start with how you knew I’d be here?”
Her shoulders relaxed, her lips curving gently at the corners. He caught himself hoping she might smile. “We have a mutual friend.”
“We do?” It had to be Agent Bale, but Drake wouldn’t call the head of Department 13 a “friend.” They hadn’t heard from him since the altercation at the cemetery anyway.
Besides, Agent Bale wouldn’t have known Drake was installing the restored doors at the Juliette Gordon Low birthplace tonight…unless the agent was spying on him.
He wouldn’t put that past Bale.
“One-Eyed Bob.” She grinned, and the moonlight danced in her light eyes, sending an unusual flare of warmth through his cold heart. “I just finished a job at Oatland Island and chatted with him over a plate of fried shrimp and hushpuppies. When I mentioned meeting you at the
