Read Online The Key Ingredient by Susan Wiggs - Free Book Online

the counter, pressing the palms of her hands down on the cool tile.
    She exhaled very slowly and reminded herself that it had been only a few weeks since they’d started trying. No one got pregnant that quickly, did they? She’d assumed there would be time to adjust to the idea of starting a family. Time to think about finding a bigger place, to get their schedule under control. To stop quarreling so much.
    She hadn’t even set up an ovulation calendar. Hadn’t read the what-­to-­expect books. Hadn’t seen a doctor. It was way too soon for that.
    But maybe . . . She grabbed the kit from under the sink—­a leftover from a time when she had not wanted to be pregnant. If she didn’t rule out the possibility, it would nag at her all day. The directions were dead simple, and she followed them to the letter. And then, oh so carefully, she set the test strip on the counter. Her hand shook as she looked at the little results window. One pink line meant not pregnant. Two lines meant pregnant.
    She blinked, making sure she was seeing this correctly. Two pink lines .
    Just for a moment, everything froze in place, crystallized by wonder. The world fell away.
    She held her breath. Leaned forward and stared into the mirror, wearing a look she’d never seen on her own face before. It was one of those moments Gran used to call a key moment. Time didn’t simply tick past, unremarked, unnoticed. No, this was the kind of moment that made everything stop. You separated it from every other one, pressing the feeling to your heart, like a dried flower slipped between the pages of a beloved book. The moment was made of something fragile and delicate, yet it possessed the power to last forever.
    That, Gran would affirm, was a key moment. Annie felt a lump in her throat—­and a sense of elation so pure that she forgot to breathe.
    This is how it begins , she thought.
    All the myriad things on her to-­do list melted into nothingness. Now she had only one purpose in the world—­to tell Martin.
    She washed up and went to the bedroom, reaching for the phone. No, she didn’t want to phone him. He never picked up, rarely checked his voice mail. It was just as well, because it struck Annie that this news was too big to deliver by voice mail or text message. She had to give her husband the news in person, a gift proffered from the heart, a surprise as sweet as the one she was feeling now. He deserved a key moment of his own. She wanted to go see him. To watch his face when she spoke the magic words: I’m pregnant .
    Hurrying down the stairs, she joined the reporter in the living room. “CJ, I’m so sorry. Something’s come up. I have to get to the studio right away. Can we finish another time?”
    The writer’s face closed a little. “I just had a few more—­”
    Bad form to tick off a reporter from a major magazine. Annie couldn’t let herself care about that, not now. She was sparkling with wonder, unable to focus on anything but her news. She couldn’t stand the idea of keeping it in even a moment longer. “Could you e-­mail the follow-­up questions? I swear, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent.”
    â€œAre you all right?”
    Annie fanned herself, suddenly feeling flushed and breathless. Did she look different? Did she have the glow of pregnancy already? That was silly; she’d only known for a ­couple of minutes. “I . . . Something unexpected came up. I have to get to the studio right away.”
    â€œHow can I help? Can I come along? Lend a hand?”
    â€œThat’s really nice of you.” Annie usually wasn’t so reckless with the press. Part of the reason the show was so successful was that she and her PR team had cultivated them with lavish attention. She paused to think, then said, “I have a great idea. Let’s meet at Lucque for dinner—­you, Martin and me. He