The Pleasure Principle

His gramps didn’t say anything for a long moment. He simply puffed on his pipe and stared at Brady.

“Ask him what his plans are,” he told his daughter-in-law.

“Listen, old man, I’m not your puppet—”

“I was thinking I might like to try my hands at making boots again,” Brady cut in.

“Did you hear that?” Claire leveled a frown at Zachariah. “Or do you need to turn your hearing aid up?”

“I don’t wear a hearing aid, little lady, and you’d do well to remember who you’re talking to.” He waved his pipe at her. “I can’t imagine he still knows anything about making boots or that he’s ready to give it his all.”

“Just like riding a horse,” Brady said. “Once you’ve climbed into the saddle and taken a good ride, you never forget and I wouldn’t give anything less.”

“Horse riding,” Claire paraphrased, obviously tiring of arguing with the old man. “You never forget and he’s dedicated.”

The old man nodded and puffed a few more times before a thoughtful look crept over his expression. “I could use an extra pair of hands down at the factory. Not for some frou-frou position, mind you.” He motioned to Brady’s silk shirt. “I’ve got Ellie running the office and she doesn’t need a bit of help. She’s a whiz with numbers and loves every minute.”

“I’m not an accountant,” Brady told his grandfather, who didn’t so much as spare him a glance. “I’m an ad man.” Was an ad man.

“Tell him I ain’t got room for one of those either.”

“Good.” Brady spoke up before his mother could open her mouth. “Because that’s not the type of position I’m interested in.”

“It takes focus, not to mention he’s liable to get his hands dirty,” Granddaddy warned.

“Just the way I like them.”

“We’ll see,” Zachariah said as he puffed on his pipe and gave his only grandson one long, slow look. “We surely will.”

“THIS IS BULLSHIT,” Ellie declared later that afternoon as she pulled her Jeep Wrangler into the parking lot and braked to a halt. “You should be in charge of operations instead of hammering soles onto a bunch of cowboy boots. Hammering, of all things. I can’t believe he’s starting you out at the bottom. You might as well be just another—”

“—guy off the street,” he finished for her. “Right now, I am. He doesn’t trust me and I can’t say as I blame him.”

“What?”

“I betrayed him.”

“You stood up to him. There’s a big difference.”

“Not to him, and until I prove myself again, then this is the way it’s going to be. Lots of hammering and lots of silence.”

“And that’s another thing. Have you ever seen anything so juvenile as him talking to you through other people? He’s crazy. That’s all I have to say. And mean. And I have every intention of telling him so. Not that he’ll listen to me either, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

“Let it go, Ellie. If putting me through my paces and giving me the silent treatment will make him feel better, then that’s what I’ll let him do.”

“You’ve got a college degree, for Pete’s sake.”

“And he’s got a lot of resentment towards me. He needs to vent.”

“So you’re going to be his whipping boy until he comes to his senses, is that it?”

“I’ll do what I have to do. I knew what I was facing when I left Dallas.” And he’d been eager to get back anyway. To escape the daily grind and put the past eleven years behind him.

“But it’s still not right,” she persisted. “You shouldn’t be doing something you hate. No one should.” A faraway look crossed her eyes and Brady had the distinct impression that she’d died her hair green, then purple, not to make a fashion statement, but to make a personal one. Namely that she wasn’t as happy hiding behind those ledger books as his grandfather apparently thought.

“Maybe not.” But it felt right. Brady had worked in the hammering department as a teenager and he knew the work. What’s more, he liked it. The heavy weight of the hammer in his hands and the scent of leather in his nostrils. “Trust me, I’m looking forward to every minute. You don’t know how much I missed this place.” He stared through the windshield at the large brown building that sat on the far edge of the Weston Ranch.

Once a barn, the structure had been expanded throughout the years and bricked over to accommodate the growing boot company. A small gravel parking lot sat to the right of the building. Brady trained his eyes on the patch of trees just beyond and glimpsed a large corral in the distance. He didn’t need a closer look to know that the place stood empty. Gone were the animals that had once put muscle behind the large machinery used in the leather process when Brady had been a small boy. He’d been barely four when his grandfather had converted to the much cheaper and more convenient electricity. The massive tanning machines operated at the flick of a switch. Ovens that had once been fired up every morning by hand now had temperature knobs.

His grandfather had been determined to keep Weston Boots competitive in the ever-changing market place. Factories pumped out more and more and so the man had been hellbent on doing what he could to compete. And he’d succeeded. Somewhat.

The company was holding its own, but it wasn’t moving. Ellie’s books had indicated a steady profit over the past six years and while the numbers weren’t dropping, they weren’t increasing to represent the changing economy. The company needed a boost. He pushed the thought aside, however appealing. He wasn’t an ad man. He made cowboy boots. End of story.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Ellie’s voice pushed past his thoughts and drew his full attention. “I’m glad you’re home. Damned glad. But after living in Dallas all these years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you go stir crazy over the next few days. This place is hardly the Exxon Towers.”

“No,” he agreed, “it’s not even close.” Which was the point exactly. The fading structure was completely opposite from the sixteen stories of steel and concrete he’d grown accustomed to. “Accustomed,” as in tolerant. But he’d never developed a true liking for the skyscraper, much less the surrounding big city.

This he liked. The smell of grass. The sight of trees. The feel of the sun beating down on him, making sweat run in trickles from beneath the brim of his faded Resistol.

A smile tilted his lips as he climbed from the passenger seat and followed his sister toward the building. Familiarity rushed through him as he touched the rusted wagon wheel that hung on the front door of the building—the same wheel that had been hanging on the door since Weston Boots first opened back in the late 1800s.

“I keep telling Granddaddy to get rid of that,” Ellie said as she came up behind him. “But you know better than anyone how stubborn he can be.” She drew in a deep breath. “We’re running with a skeleton crew since it’s Saturday—Granddaddy’s only day off—so you’re not likely to get the real feel until the place is packed and all departments are up and operational. That’ll be first thing Monday.”

“That’s okay. It’ll give me a chance to get the feel of things again without worrying about slowing down production.” He pushed open the door for his sister, then followed her inside.

“No problem, but do it fast because I’ve got a surprise planned for later.”

“What surprise?”

“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now, would it?” She smiled as if she held a big secret. “Let’s just say, it’s not every day the prodigal brother comes home. The occasion definitely calls for a celebration.”

“As in a party?”

Excitement lit her eyes as she nodded. “As in an intimate party with the old gang.”

He returned his sister’s smile. “You never could keep a secret.”

“How could I when you practically stuffed haystack needles under my fingernails to get me to talk?”

He grinned and let the door rock shut. Nostalgia rushed through him, along with a sense of peace and he simply stood there in the doorway, absorbing the sight and sound and smell of the place.

“What’s wrong?” Ellie asked, her brow wrinkling as she studied him.

“Nothing,” he said, sliding his arm around her as he guided her inside. “Everything’s right. For the first time in a long time, everything’s right.”

“I’M AFRAID I’VE GOT bad news and good news,” Merle, still clad in overalls and T-shirt, told him after Ellie dropped him off at the service station to check on his car later that afternoon.

“Give me the bad news first.”