Graham paused beside them.
“That’s not really our style. My uncle prided himself on offering prize bucks in challenging hunts. We’ve continued the tradition. The people who come here, they come expecting to hunt. Not to sightsee and shoot their allotted deer. And we only allow bow hunting. No rifles.”
Ro’s surprise was clear. Her lush mouth had dropped open into a tempting little O that he wanted to do very bad things to. It wasn’t lost on Zach that Graham’s stare was just as stuck on her pouty lips.
“Ask your questions, doll,” Zach said.
“Okay, so you said something about your uncle? Does he live here, too?”
The lust in Graham’s eyes died a quick death. Even after five years, Jerry’s passing was still a subject Graham avoided. Zach didn’t blame him. Jerry had been the only family Graham had ever been able to count on. Hell, besides Graham and the team, Jerry had been the only person that Zach had been able to count on after he’d enlisted. But that was an even darker subject that he didn’t want to contemplate if he could avoid it.
Zach took pity on Graham and stepped in to answer the question. “Graham’s Uncle Jerry has been gone about five years now. We all miss him. He’d let us crash here when we were on leave. Put us to work.”
Ro nodded, as though she was processing that information.
“And the Rambo summer camp look? I can’t picture rich guys coming to rough it here.”
Zach smiled. “We cater to the serious hunters. Not the executives out for a weekend jaunt. The people we draw are more concerned about the quality of our bucks and our terrain.”
Graham finally joined the conversation again. “And this place was a summer camp at one time. It went out of business in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s because it wasn’t on a lake and couldn’t offer watersports like so many others. Uncle Jerry bought it in the late ‘70s and slowly bought up all the land around it that he could and converted it into a whitetail hunting preserve.”
“That’s kind of incredible. Did you spend a lot of time here growing up?”
Zach could tell Graham was uncomfortable with the question, but surprisingly, he answered anyway.
“Ten years. Right up until I enlisted.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize your parents lived here, too.”
Zach cringed.
“My parents were out of the picture by then. It was just Jerry and me.”
Ro’s questions ceased, and an awkward silence descended.
They’d been standing in front of the mess hall for the last five minutes while Rowan asked her questions and scoped out the place. Time to move on.
“Let’s get you some food,” Zach said, reaching for the door.
Rowan took in the three large rectangular wooden dining tables, each surrounded by eight chairs, inside the large room. The plank wood floors looked old, but clean. At one end of the room was a large service window that opened into the kitchen area with a wide counter extending out into the dining room. Right now it looked like it functioned as a buffet for the hot breakfast food. The steam and smells emanating from the platters set off a round of growling in Ro’s stomach.
Zach heard it, or maybe felt it, first. “Here, sugar, take a seat.” He pulled out a chair and squatted down so she could slide onto it.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said with a sincere smile. Zach was easy to like, and the fact that he was gorgeous and saved her from the awkward silence following her nosy questions didn’t hurt.
Ro forced herself to look away from his twinkling amber eyes and take in her fellow companions seated at the table.
Three men, all large and wearing long-sleeve thermal shirts and cargo pants in various earth tones, and then one little blonde angel dressed in jeans and a pink sweatshirt that had a giant, purple, glittery flower in the middle. Her pigtails were accented with matching pink ribbons. The largest man at the table, sporting a completely shaved head and light mocha-colored skin, sat next to the little girl and occasionally cut her pancakes into smaller pieces when she tried to shove a giant chunk into her mouth. He would have easily been the most intimidating man in the room, except for maybe Graham, but the look of complete adoration in his eyes when he looked at the little girl effectively derailed the scary vibe. Beau was seated across from the little girl, and a man who Rowan hadn’t seen before sat at the foot of the table. Even seated, Ro could tell that he was also tall and broad, with shoulders fit for a linebacker and looked like he could crush the chair he was sitting in. He had shaggy hair that was more copper than brown and stunning green eyes that were currently making a careful study of her.
Rowan opened her mouth to introduce herself, but Graham beat her to it.