The sad truth was, he was right. Eleven years had taken their toll.
But no more, Brady vowed for the umpteenth time. He was shedding his image and getting back to his roots. His past. His family.
The old man’s gaze dropped to the dusty cowboy boots Brady had unearthed the day before he’d left Dallas.
“Those are Weston boots,” he told Claire, obviously intent on giving Brady the silent treatment. “They’re my boots.” While Brady had inherited his sense of duty from his grandfather, he’d also inherited his mother’s spunk. “You gave them to me, remember?”
“Tell this young man that, of course, I remember. I ain’t that old.” He eyed the boots again. “They’re still Weston boots.”
“And I’m a Weston.”
Zachariah didn’t say anything for a long moment. He simply stared and thought. Brady could practically see the wheels spinning as the old man decided his grandson’s fate in those next few tense moments.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” the man finally barked at Claire. “Get the boy a seat. He’s here. He might as well eat.”
Brady let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, and the tension eased. Zachariah Weston didn’t eat with strangers. He only broke bread with friends, loved ones, family.
A warmth filled Brady as he slid into a nearby seat, followed by a swell of regret. Regret for all the lunches he’d missed. For the family he’d missed.
But he was home, and he was going to make up for lost time starting right now.
“DOROTHY REALLY OUTDID herself.” Zachariah leaned back in his chair and puffed on his pipe. “Never had apples that tender.”
“They were good,” Brady commented, but his grandfather didn’t so much as spare him a glance. He kept his gaze trained on his daughter-in-law.
“Ask him why he left Dallas.”
“Why don’t you ask him? He’s sitting right in front of you.”
“I don’t belong there,” Brady spoke up before his mother could give the old man a piece of her mind. And she would. Claire Weston had never had trouble standing up to her husband when he’d been alive and the same went for his ornery father. “I never did.”
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.