Chapter 16
Griz worried about Elowen’s safety. She was a badass, no doubt, but being out here alone put her at risk. If something happened, no one would hear her scream. It wasn’t something he wanted to bring up, but before their vacation ended, he needed to talk to her about it.
Maybe she should get a dog. That was a lot of responsibility, and it would take time. Getting a dog she liked, in addition to getting one that was trained, was a lot. Plus, adding a dog into her house would be a lot of responsibility.
“Hey, what’s up?” Elowen asked as they walked back to her cabin.
“Sorry. Just worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will. I just don’t like the idea of you being out here alone.”
“I’ve been alone for most of my life and I’ve been fine.”
He nodded, not wanting to discount her experience. He’d seen too much to believe that people who’d always been fine would continue to be fine. Too many innocent people ended up in terrible situations because of the evil out there.
Elowen stopped walking, and he turned to face her. “What?”
His lips thinned. “I’ve just seen so much.”
She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I’m sure you have. I just—I can’t live in fear.”
“I don’t expect you to. I just want to make sure you’re safe. Like you’ve got to lock your doors.”
“I know. I just got complacent living out here, not seeing people for days.”
He pulled her into a hug, wishing he could stay here and keep her safe. “I’m going to worry about you. I know you are smart and strong, but evil people don’t play by the rules. They do things that you, a rational person, wouldn’t even think of doing.”
She leaned back enough so their gazes met. “I get that. I will be smart. Maybe I can get an alarm system. That way I will know if someone goes into my house.”
Danika and Sharp had stopped walking and come back to them. “The thing about an alarm system is you have to set it,” Danika said.
“Is there anything that sets automatically? Like if I forget, it will arm itself?”
Sharp spoke up. “That’s called geofencing. I don’t know if there is one, but it wouldn’t help if you were at home. You’d have to remember to set it.”
Griz grunted. “You need something out here. I know it feels safe because you don’t see many people, but something is going on based on the fact there was a trail camera set up at the river.”
Shine had walked back to join them. “What about an auto lock?”
Elowen squinted at him. “A what?”
“A lock for the door so at fifteen seconds to a few minutes the lock activates.”
Her lips twisted up to the side. “But what if I forget to grab my keys?”
“They have codes you punch in like the lock on the rental cabin,” Rowan said.
“Oh, doh. I know what that is. Of course, like the main cabin,” Elowen said.
“I insisted on having one at our house so when I go out for a walk in the morning, I don’t have to take my keys.
The code is like six digits long. No one will be able to break it unless they just happened to guess it on the first time.
The lock sends me a message every time the lock is turned.
So when the lock opens, I get a message and when the lock closes, I get a message. You have internet at your place?”
She nodded. “I do. I also have a back up connection so if I lose internet, a cellular link is initiated. It’s for my business so I don’t ever miss emails or calls from people searching for the cabin.
Though I send out detailed directions, and links for the popular mapping systems, people still get lost.”
“So the door would send you a message every time someone unlocks it. Then if someone is here, you’ll know.”
“Wow, that’s great. When I bought the lock for the front door of the rental cabin, I didn’t do much research.
I just picked up what I could find at the local hardware store.
I didn’t know about the other stuff like locks that send texts every time the lock is turned.
Then I would know if someone came in through the door. ”
“We should set you up with an alarm, so if someone breaks in you know,” Griz said.
She shook her head, and he knew she would oppose his suggestion. Was it because he said they would set it up?
“I can buy it.”
He nodded. “Okay, but I want to get it set up before we leave.”
Rowan wiggled her fingers. “We wanted to go into town later. We could run by the hardware store.”
“There’s one not too far away. I don’t know if they have a security system for sale or not.”
“I’m sure they do,” Sharp said. “And if they don’t, we can order one that is simple to set up.”
“Thank you. You all are helping so much and this is your vacation. You shouldn’t have to do this.”
Griz chuckled. “We enjoy doing this kind of stuff. And we want to help you and keep you safe.”
They made plans to go into town the next morning. She was happy they wanted her to go with them. She liked spending time with them.
Amelia had out her phone and was looking intently at it. “Oh, look at this restaurant,” Amelia said. “It looks so cute.”
Elowen looked over Amelia’s shoulder at the place, seeing it was one of the places in town that served barely passable food.
“Not that place. The storefront is cute, and they get travelers passing through so they stay open. But the food is awful.”
Amelia shook her head. “Oh no. We want good food.”
“I know of a place, but it’s not fancy. There is no inside dining. They have picnic tables and outhouses. It’s the best food ever, but it’s served on paper plates.”
“That’s what I want,” Jay said.
“Are you all sure?” Elowen asked.
Griz nodded. “We’re sure. Good food is more important than the surroundings.”
“It does have a good view of the valley below.”
Nichole clasped her hands together. “Oh, I’m getting excited about this trip.”
Griz knew his friends weren’t pretentious. The women liked cute places and things, but they also didn’t mind doing activities that were rugged. That’s how this vacation came about. Instead of going to a resort, they picked a cabin in the woods.
This was much more his speed. Somehow, he needed to figure out a way to leave the city. He still hadn’t told his buddies that he was planning on retiring sooner rather than later.
He knew the guys would be disappointed if he left, and the last thing he wanted to do was disappoint his friends.
Leaving was hard. He didn’t want to go, but he knew it was close to time for him, especially after this week.
It bugged him that he felt better about this now than he had in a while.
And it wasn’t the fact they were on vacation.
He suspected it was because they weren’t working out as hard.
They were doing some stuff, but it wasn’t anywhere near as much activity as they did on base.
His body feeling better was surely a sign he needed to think about what he was doing and how much more he could take.
If he got to the point that he would be a hindrance on a mission, he would stop.
Putting his buddies at risk because his ego was over-inflated would be totally wrong.
He knew guys who did that, and they got more than just themselves hurt.