SIX
Dearest Mercy.
Alden stopped and glared at the paper sitting on the small desk in the bedroom he had claimed for his own. Dearest sounded dreadfully intimate. Far too intimate for people who’d just met.
And had kissed twice.
“None of that, now,” he told himself, shifting in the chair nonetheless. The memory of those kisses would remain uppermost in his mind for a very long time.
Mercy, it has come to my attention . . .
“Now I sound like a supervisor about to fire her.” Alden leaned back in the chair and tapped the pen on his chin as he thought. He’d come up with the idea to write Mercy a note because his therapist had once told him that if he couldn’t say something in person, writing it was the next best thing. “There has to be a happy medium. Dear Mercy? Ugh. Hi, Mercy! Oh, lord
