“You’re going to be late,” Dillon said, closing the barn door behind him. “Doesn’t the meeting start at seven thirty?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s after seven now.”

“I know.” Troy brushed feed off his hands, and then wiped his hands on the back of his butt, feeling the stiff denim. “I don’t want to do this. Dreading this meeting.”

“It was your idea,” Dillon said.

“The ball wasn’t.”

“But saving the hotel was.”

True, Troy thought, adding water to the trough inside one stall.

And what a terrible mistake that had been.

But Troy wouldn’t say that out loud, not even to his brother. It’d kill him to admit that restoring the Graff Hotel to its former splendor had the potential to bankrupt him. He should have never invested so much of his own money in one project. A smart investor didn’t shell out that much of one’s capital. It’d been a mistake to buy the hotel for cash, and even more risky to funnel so much capital into the property. He should have pulled back from the renovation when he realized it was a money pit. But he’d been too proud, too stupid, and too emotionally attached to the project to do the smart thing when he could.

Thank God he was a fighter, and tough. He’d knuckle his way through this battle, because he was nowhere ready to give up on the hotel.

The hotel had only been reopened for six months, after the two and a half year restoration. It’d been a huge job restoring the hotel because it’d been abandoned, boarded up, for over forty years before that. But you wouldn’t know it looking at the hotel today. The Graff’s grand lobby glowed with rich paneled wood, marble, and gleaming light fixtures, while the grand ballroom and smaller reception rooms sparkled with glittering chandeliers.

And yes, the hotel had virtually zero occupancy since early January, but December had been a good month, with the introduction of festive afternoon tea and company holiday parties on the weekends. But what they needed to do was fill the rooms all the time, because even empty, there were still salaries and bills to pay.

But the hotel was special. She was one of a kind. And while he regretted that restoring her had the power to cost him his company and financial security, he was glad he’d saved her.

Someone had to.

Now he just needed to continue focusing on turning things around, and the hotel staff would. He had a good team here, and everyone in management was committed to making the Graff successful. Troy knew that eventually they could get the hotel into the black. It wasn’t impossible.

It was a matter of increasing tourism to Marietta, and getting publicity for the hotel, the kind of publicity that would make the Graff appealing to meeting planners and wedding planners, ensuring that the Graff became the destination of choice for conferences and special events.

“You’re in pretty deep, aren’t you?” Dillon said, as Troy left the stall and latched the door closed behind him.

“Yeah.”

Dillon sat down on a stack of hay bales against the wall, extending his legs. “So just how deep?”

Troy reached for his coat hanging on a peg above Dillon’s head. “Deep enough that if things go south, I’d be the one living here, working the ranch, leaving you free to return to Austin.”

“That’d be a relief for me, but hell for you.” Dillon folded his arms across his chest. “You hate the ranch.”

Troy’s lips compressed. He wasn’t going to even dignify that with a response because yes, he did hate the ranch. He hated everything about it, and always had, which is why whenever he came home he stayed in town at a hotel.

“But then, you don’t like Marietta, either,” Dillon continued, watching Troy button his heavy sheepskin coat. “Which is why none of us can figure out why you’d hitch yourself, and your future, to that damn hotel. You’re the smart, successful Sheenan—”

“You and Cormac haven’t done too badly for yourselves.”

“Because you invested in us.”

“I believe in you.”

“And the hotel?”

“Not ready to throw in the towel. I’ve spent ten years investing in startups. I believe we can still turn things around.”

“But why the Graff in the first place? You’re never going to make a profit from the hotel. You might not even earn back the investment.”

Troy had started walking to the barn door, but he stopped and turned to look back at his brother, and then somehow, just like that, his mother was there.