Mara Kincaid had always thought of herself as a reasonably composed woman. She handled work emergencies without blinking, navigated her loud extended family with grace, and rarely let strangers get under her skin. But sitting in Aunt Calliope Wilder’s sun-bathed living room with its mismatched teacups, plants that looked like they whispered secrets, and the faint scent of sandalwood her nerves refused to cooperate.
Her knee bounced beneath the low coffee table, rattling a spoon. She clasped her hands together to still them, but that only made her palms sweat even more.
Aunt Calliope breezed back into the room with a tray overflowing with warm biscuits, bite-sized cookies, and two steaming mugs of dark, earthy-smelling coffee. The woman never did anything halfway. Everything with her was
