Page 76 of Refuge for Cherilyn

“With Lara, I’m sure it’s been a few! God, I’m glad she’s got those hearing aids and she’s doing so great. It’s like living with a totally different kid.”

“It is. I feel like the world’s worst mom because?”

“No. Stop. You had every right to expect the school to do better than that. They failed youandher. That’ll never happen again.”

“It had better not. I’ve got Maisey on my side now,” Cherilyn huffed.

“Yep. And I’d hate to be on Maisey’s bad side,” Shaw said with a laugh.

As soon as the door to the room closed, he watched her. Just as she had when they’d first checked in earlier, she wandered the room, touching things, looking at things, then pulled open the drapes over the big windows to gaze out at the lights of the city. “Oh, wow. This is so beautiful at night.”

“Yeah. It really is.”

“And we have bathrobes and slippers! Look at that! I bet the shower is amazing.”

“Probably. Hey, want something to drink?”

“I really don’t want to go back down to the bar.”

Shaw grinned. “We won’t. I’ll have room service bring it up.”

“Ooooo, fancy! I like it!”

Shaw picked up the receiver of the phone on the desk and punched in a one and a two. A smooth female voice answered, “Room service.”

“Yes, ma’am, this is Mr.Harrison in six thirty-one. I placed an order earlier for… Yes, ma’am, that’s me. Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you very much.” He gently dropped the receiver into the cradle and turned to Cherilyn. “It’ll be up in about ten minutes.”

“What did you order?”

“Oh, you’ll see. I think you’ll like it. Now, sit down here with me and let’s look through this book.” He’d seen it earlier, a beautifully bound book full of pictures of local attractions and points of interest. “I bet we see something in here that we’d like to do tomorrow.”

When she told him she’d never been to an art gallery, he insisted they’d go to the downtown gallery. She liked the zoo too, but he pointed out the botanical gardens. “The kids wouldn’t care anything about this, and we can always bring them back to the zoo. This is more of a grownup thing,” he said, pointing to the pictures of the flowers and flagstone walkways.

“True.” There was a knock at the door. “That must be room service.”

“No-no-no,” he barked as she tried to get up. “I’ll get it.” Shaw looked through the peephole, then opened the door. “Oh, this looks great. Thank you so much.” There was a twenty dollar bill on the desk right beside the door, and he handed it to the young man who’d brought the cart.

“Thank you, sir! I hope you enjoy it. We made sure everything is in place,” the young man said and winked.

“Thank you so much. Have a great evening.” Shaw pulled the cart the rest of the way into the room, then closed and locked the door. “Oh, this looks nice.”

Cherlyn’s eyes were the size of golf balls. “Wow! What did you order?”

“Let’s see, a charcuterie tray?”

“I thought it was supposed to be a board.”

“Not necessarily. It’s still charcuterie, even though it’s on a platter.” And a pretty platter it was too, white china trimmed in gold. “And we’ve got caramel cheesecake slices, and petit fours?”

“What are those?”

“Tiny little finger cakes. You’ll like them. And…” he said and pulled the silver-plated cover from a tray with a flourish. “Chocolate-covered strawberries.”

“Oh, wow! I’ve never had them before! And there’s a huge pile of them!”

“I knew you’d like those. Let’s get out of our clothes, into our robes, and sit down and enjoy this. Just lounge around and act like rich people.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that. We’re some Saudi crown prince and his consort, LadyCherilyn.”

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