The Key Ingredient
Author: Susan Wiggs
Date: 2016-06-14 06:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance; Fiction; Chick Lit; Short Stories; Contemporary; Novella; Contemporary Romance; Womens Fiction
Description: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs comes a wonderful short story, and companion tale to her unforgettable novel Family Tree Every great love story has a beginning. Annie Rush’s started at a food cart in a vibrant city park. Annie, then a film student, came across a ruggedly handsome, charismatic chef serving up gourmet street food to an ever-growing clientele lining up for his creations. Together, Annie and Martin Harlow conceived The Key Ingredient, a cooking show featuring Martin as the star while Annie handles production. As they travel to Annie’s Vermont hometown to film
Publisher: William Morrow Impulse

Contents

[Maybe yes, maybe no....]

An Excerpt from Family Tree

Also by Susan Wiggs

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO. Martin has been flirting with me this whole trip. I pretend to treat it lightly, but come on. Martin Harlow. He’s like a piece of found art, rough around the edges, but with a form and function that haunts a girl’s dreams. At the moment, I’m not dreaming, although everyone else in the rental van is. I’m the only one awake besides the driver.

The last leg of the journey is always the hardest. Especially when the journey takes place at the blustery tail end of winter and you’re traveling from the sunny blaze of Los Angeles to the frigid wilds of northern Vermont. After the redeye flight from LA to New York, my production team and I endured a bumpy regional hop to Burlington, followed by a slog in two hired vans to our final destination—Switchback, Vermont.

It’s my hometown, but I haven’t lived here since I graduated high school. What is home? Maybe it’s not a place, but a moment in time. When I was safe. Secure. Cared for. Home. It’s more than a point on a map. It’s a sensation. A feeling of comfort—feet sinking into warm slippers. Hands curling around a mug of fragrant coffee. Sounds of birdsong and breezes stirring the leaves in the maple trees. As my mind wraps around the notion of home, everything else falls away. It simply fades like the ambient noise we deal with on set every day when we’re filming a segment for the show.

I grew up knowing that the best maple syrup in the world comes from Vermont. And the best syrup in Vermont comes from Rush Mountain. It’s been my family’s business for generations. And now the production is going to set up, literally, in my own backyard—the family sugarbush on Rush Mountain.

Many times, I’ve pictured myself coming back one day in triumph, having chased my dream clear to California and back. I suppose you could say that’s what I’m doing now, about to begin filming the pilot episode of a TV series I created.

When we pitched the show to the network, I was asked how I came up with the name, The Key Ingredient. The truth is, I had the name long before I had the show. It comes from the wisest woman I’ve ever known—Anastasia Carnaby Rush, my grandmother. Gran used to say each recipe has a key ingredient—one element that defines it, without which the dish simply wouldn’t be the same, like the vinegar in a red velvet cake, the threads of saffron in paella or the four pods of star anise she used to tuck into the pasta sauce as it simmered on the back burner.

What she really meant had nothing to do with a recipe you make in the kitchen. I’ve always regretted that I didn’t figure that out sooner.

I wish Gran were still around for my homecoming, even though it’s for work and the budget only allows us seventy-two hours for filming. She would have been so happy for me.

When I was growing up, Gran and I watched hours and hours of PBS cooking shows together. This was in the ’90s, before the food channels that are so ubiquitous these days exploded onto the scene. The older shows were pretty basic—a well-equipped kitchen, an island counter, a chopping board and four burners. Yet even the most pared-down, simple production inspired us if the chef had a great personality. We loved it when the host would talk of his travels and share the stories behind the food, all the while demonstrating kitchen techniques we could practice. I learned to fold, cream, julienne and sauté by watching Martin Yan, Chef Tell and Mario Batali, while Gran wrote down the recipes so we could recreate them at home.

Even back then, it wasn’t just the cooking techniques that drew me in. I was fascinated by the whole idea of a kitchen rigged with cameras so a talented chef or home cook could share her art. I dreamed of being in the spotlight myself, showing the world how to make egg pasta or maple-glazed carrots or rosemary lemonade. Our family photo albums are stuffed with snapshots of me giving pretend demos to a rapt audience of dolls, dogs or grandparents. While other kids were building with Legos, I was practicing my knife skills.

At the age of nine, I got a digital video camcorder for Christmas. When I learned what that big, cumbersome camera could do, it was as if I’d seen the face of God. Not only could I dream up my own shows and episodes, I could film them and play them back.

Gran was a really good sport about it all. She let me set the camera on its tripod and play unfortunate selections of background music while I interviewed her.

“I was never homesick,” she said, talking to me—not the camera. “This place has always felt more like home to me than the big city. You see, I believe some people are born in the place they belong. Others have to go looking for it. That was me. I went looking, and I found this place. It’s my heart’s home, and I thank God every day that I’m able to spend my life here.”

She talked of her life in Boston, and how as a young woman she worked in a restaurant called Durgin-Park. It was a place that had been in existence for three hundred years. The tourists would come for baked beans and to be sassed by the waitresses. It was there, during the lunch rush, that she met a handsome Vermonter who had come down one summer weekend to see the sights of Boston. She proudly told everyone that yes, she sassed him. At Durgin-Park, it was expected.

Less than a year later, she bade her family farewell and boarded a train up to Vermont, which in those days was as distant and untamed as the Wild West, to hear her tell it.

With the red camera light running and me directing things with zero expertise but an excess of enthusiasm, she created many of the family favorites. Somewhere in my digital archives, there’s footage of her making ice-cream pie, scalloped potatoes, squash roasted with maple butter and salt, potato and ricotta gnocchi, salads bright with tomatoes just harvested in her legendary summer garden, homemade jam from the berries we picked, crisp pickles preserved without one single drop of vinegar.

If you ever watch a cooking show, pay close attention to the chef’s hands. The very best chefs on the air handle food with grace and confidence—and with love. Even in the grainy old digital files of my grandmother, back when my camera skills were rudimentary at best, you can still see this trait. She is absolutely sure of herself in the kitchen, and driven by a mission to care for people by feeding them. When preparing a meal, a good chef knows instinctively that love is the key ingredient, no matter what else you add to the dish. In fact, that’s how I came up with the name for the show I produce—The Key Ingredient.

As a student in film school, the last thing I expected was to be the creative force behind a hit cooking show.

Confession: My real dream was to be the creative force in front of the camera, too. That’s not how events unfolded, but I can’t complain. I did the next best thing. I discovered the talented, charismatic, totally hot chef who was chosen to host the show—Martin Harlow.

He was a food-cart chef in Washington Square Park, just barely scraping by but attracting an avid following of foodies who appreciated his culinary skills and groupies who admired his matinee-idol looks. I was a film student at New York University’s Tisch School, trying to recover from a shattered heart after walking away from the best man I’d ever known.

Martin became the topic of my senior project, a short documentary. After it was posted on the internet, the film went viral, and we were offered the opportunity to shoot a pilot with an option for more episodes of a cooking show for a new start-up network. The day we got the green light, he picked me up and danced me around the room, and then he kissed me long and hard. It was a good kiss. A really, really good kiss, full of promise. But no. This is work. This is our shot. We can’t screw this up.

Still, I catch myself fantasizing about being a pair onscreen. The Sonny and Cher of the kitchen. The culinary Captain and Tennille. Martin admits he fantasizes about the two of us offscreen.

While in the development phase, we filmed some test reels with me in the role of cohost, but the executive producer claimed my “look” isn’t right for the series. I still remember how I felt, hearing that. As if I’d swallowed a ball of ice and had to pretend nothing was wrong. In show business, you can’t take things like that personally. And you can’t argue with the executive producer, AKA the owner of the show.

Above all, you can’t worry that the idea you created is now at the mercy of a committee of production and network executives whose chief aim is to attract sponsorship dollars. In commercial TV, that would be the key ingredient. Already, I can feel the creative control slipping away as they talk about future episodes going over the top with expensive stunts, like diving for oysters, foraging for truffles or milking a Nubian goat. I’m starting to wonder what happened to the original concept for the show. Sometimes it feels as if the original idea is being overshadowed by theatrics and attention-grabbing segments that were never part of my initial vision.

Then I remind myself how lucky I am just to have been in the right place at the right time with the right talent. Most people my age only dream of getting such a great start in the business. It’s only the beginning.

They cast Melissa Judd in the role of cohost. Martin met her in his yoga class. Her former gig was hawking kitchen gadgets on a late-night shopping network, but apparently her look is perfect for our show’s target demographic. She’s blonde and beautiful, which makes up for the fact that her delivery tends to be shrill and overwrought.

To her credit, she’s a hard worker and a quick learner. I should know. It was my job to train her to be more genuine on camera, to play up her natural chemistry with Martin. I did a good job, because their onscreen chemistry is amazing. So amazing that I sometimes feel threatened by it.

As our van with the crew trolls through the main part of Switchback, I start to worry about the weather. The sky is bulging with low, gray clouds, and rain hisses against the windshield. It’s not the sort of blue-sky, snow-dusted weather we were hoping for. This time of year, you take your chances.

I sneak glances at the others in the van. Martin has his head pillowed on a wadded-up jacket, still sleeping off the redeye flight. He sleeps like a dream, a trait I envy. Melissa is coming down with a cold—not the best thing when you’re about to go on camera. She’s been using decongestant and eye drops all through the trip. At the moment, she’s absorbed in her phone screen, posting snippets on social networks so the world can follow along on her adventure. I spotted her latest mobile shot, a sign bearing the town slogan—Welcome to Switchback. Once you Switch, you’ll never go Back. Her caption: Hi there, adorable Vermont village. We’re about to film something sweet! #thekeyingredient

I’ve been told that I do mornings very well. I love the morning light streaming in through the windows. I love the rich aroma of fresh coffee. Martin does mornings well, too; he’s a fantastic chef who can put together a quick sauté of surprising ingredients—say, smoked salmon and fresh peas, topped with a poached egg and horseradish crème fraiche. After something like that, the day opens up with possibility.

But this day . . . I’m not so sure.

As the van slows down in the town center, Martin wakes up, stretching his long, lean body and letting out a groan. “Are we there yet?” he asks.

It’s not fair that he looks so good after a redeye flight. “Yep,” I say. “Welcome to Switchback.”

“Coffee,” he says. “Is there coffee in Switchback?”

“There’s a diner over there.” I indicate the Star Lite Café, a Switchback institution since before I was born. After high school football games, we used to go there for hot chocolate, sitting on the benches outside as the scent of autumn spiced the air.

They don’t have autumn in LA.

Martin rubs his jaw and gets out of the van. “Not how I pictured it,” he says, holding out his hand to help me down.

I feel the need to apologize. Now that we’ve arrived, I’m hit by a prickly feeling of unease. I wasn’t expecting to be nervous about returning to the small town where I grew up, surrounded by everyone who’s known me for years. In all the preproduction meetings, filming here seemed like the ideal way to launch the show. I’m starting to think Martin is right—maybe coming home to film the segment wasn’t the best idea after all. Maybe it’ll rile up a certain something from the past.

I just need to keep my head down and work.

The other van pulls up beside us. We’re parked in front of the white-painted courthouse that dominates the town square. I’m still in the yoga pants and oversize top I wore for flying. My assistant, Tiger, takes everyone’s order for coffee. The rain has slacked off, so I decide to wait outside with Martin.

“We made it,” he says with a grin. “I’m excited to meet your family, see the place where you grew up.”

I smile despite my nervousness. “Me, too. They’re going to love you.” Everyone loves Martin. He’s smart and talented and charming. He’s the reason we got a shot at this show in the first place.

I glance across the street as Tiger goes into the diner. And the last person in the world I want to see is just coming out.

Melissa walks up to us. “Well, hell-ooo, handsome,” she murmurs, watching him.

Fletcher Wyndham. He stands aside and holds the door for a woman carrying a toddler.

“Oh darn,” Melissa murmurs under her breath. “Taken.”

Is he ever.

Martin stiffens beside me, and I realize I’ve been staring. “Who’s that?” he asks.

“People I knew in high school,” I quickly say. My stomach churns at the sight of them. I can’t keep myself from thinking they are the family I never had. The road I didn’t take.

His wife bends over the stroller as she tucks the little boy in. Fletcher looks across the street and spots me. We lock eyes and briefly freeze, electrified by surprise . . . and then recognition. In that moment, all the love and joy and heartache rush over me in a wave that leaves me weak and questioning all the choices I’ve ever made.

And then the moment passes, unacknowledged, and we both go our separate ways. He walks away with his family, and I turn to Martin and point out the town’s prettiest features—the covered bridge, the venerable courthouse, the old-fashioned shops. Still, the memories linger. I’m so sorry about what happened. So damned sorry. I’d give anything to wind the clock back and live that day over again.

It’s a universal sentiment after a disaster—regret. A fervent wish that you could have those moments back again, make a different choice, head in another direction.

The first time I saw Fletcher Wyndham up close was when he came up the mountain to see about a job during the sugar season. Our sugarbush is a big one, so each year we hire extra help—usually local kids from Switchback High School. If you get work during the sugar season, you qualify for early release from school, because the season is short and intense, and practically everyone in town has extra jobs to do.

The year Fletcher came to the mountain, I was a senior in high school, and with the clueless self-assurance only a teenager possesses, I’d applied to some of the best schools in the country and was waiting for one of them to welcome me with a fat scholarship. The last thing I was looking for at that moment in time was a reason to stay in Switchback.

Fletcher Wyndham was an intriguing mystery. It was rare for a new kid to show up out of the blue, and rarer still to enroll in a new school in January of senior year. The moment he appeared, we all knew he was different. He had long hair and wore skinny jeans, high-top sneakers and a battered vintage jacket. He was so good-looking that girls would stare and nudge each other, pointing him out to their friends.

In a small town, you can have all the secrets you want, but people will still speculate. For instance, Fletcher moved here with just his father, and neither of them ever talked about Fletcher’s mother. Depending on which rumor mill you subscribed to, you could hear different stories: She was in Florida. In prison. In an insane asylum. I heard she was dead. I heard Fletcher’s father had murdered her. I heard Fletcher himself murdered her.

The day he came up to our place at Rush Mountain, I felt a little thrill of excitement. Maybe this year, I thought, the sugar season would have some spice. My older brother, Kyle, hired him on the spot, of course. The sap was running like crazy, and he needed lots of workers. Tapping the trees and collecting the sap was only the beginning. The fresh sap, which is mostly super-cold water, has to be brought to the sugarhouse and put into the reverse-osmosis machine to remove a good portion of the water before it goes into the evaporator pans. It doesn’t take a lot of training, just a strong back and a willingness to work outside in crappy weather.

Since our own family history is rooted in scandal, I didn’t get why Mom was so worried about Fletcher Wyndham “drifting into town,” as she termed it. I also didn’t get why knowing who your “people” are is such a big deal. For example, everyone in Switchback knows Degan Kerry’s people; they’ve been around as long as the Rushes have, but they’re all sketchy, and Degan, who was in my grade at school, was the worst of the lot.

It did no good at all for me to point out to my mother that the way to get to know a person was to hang out with him. Thanks to the town gossip mill, my mother was convinced that Fletcher Wyndham was an express ticket to perdition.

That only made me want to know him all the more. And then when he looked at me and grinned with a certain slant of his head, I started to want him in a more serious way. A maybe-you’ll-be-my-first-time way.

I had not yet experienced my first time. When I was in high school, I stayed busy competing for blue ribbons at cooking contests and swim meets, my two favorite subjects. I was never the popular prom-queen kid in school. That role belonged to Celia Swank. She was that girl we all wanted to be, with dead-straight blonde hair and perfect boobs, and a way of laughing that made everyone else want to join in. She’d glide through the hallways of Switchback High, confident in the knowledge that every girl wanted to be her friend, and every boy wanted to nail her. She was the first of my friends to have sex—tenth grade—or at least, she was the first to talk about it.

As for me, I was determined to wait, not for marriage because that was too far away, but for the right guy. Gran told me—more than once, because I guess she wanted to make sure I heard—that after you give yourself to somebody in that way, you can’t get it back. So you’d better make sure you pick the right somebody.

My mom warned me to stay away from Fletcher Wyndham. “He and his father showed up out of nowhere,” she said. “We don’t know anything about him. Where’s his mother? We don’t know who his people are.”

When your name was Rush and you grew up in Switchback, it was pretty obvious who your “people” were. The first gallon of Sugar Rush Maple Syrup was produced in the 1800s by Elijah Rush, who claimed and named our mountain, high above the small village of Switchback.

There’s a daguerreotype portrait of old Elijah over the fireplace mantel—a somber man with a mustache and muttonchop whiskers, broad shoulders and a piercing stare. When I was little, I used to imagine what his voice sounded like and what books he liked to read. Did he have kitchen dance parties with his daughter, the way Dad used to do with me? Did he draw funny pictures like Mom did, to keep me amused? Did he play “Bill Grogan’s Goat” on the old upright piano in the family room?

There’s a family rumor about old Elijah that’s most likely more than rumor. He was married for ten years, yet he and his wife never had a baby, not one. Then, all of a sudden, twin babies came along—a boy and a girl. The rumor stems from the fact that the appearance of the kids coincided with Elijah’s role in helping runaway slaves from the South.

Rush Mountain was a known “station” on the Underground Railroad, which wasn’t a railroad at all, but an escape route. Lots of Vermonters, whether they were Quaker or not, were dedicated to freeing the slaves. Apparently, Elijah was dedicated to something more, because the babies were mixed race, judging by the only surviving photograph we have of them. Elijah’s wife, Clarissa, must have been a good sport about it, because she raised those babies as her own. I do wonder, even now, about their biological mother. Did she surrender the babies and keep running to Canada? Did she ever get to see them again?

I think the woman’s name was Jubetta Johnson. My grandpa pointed out a cryptic note in the fat family Bible we keep in a glass barrister case. On a certain page, in old-fashioned spidery penmanship, someone wrote, Jubetta Johnson, arrived from parts unknown, and thence departed, 1861. And that’s the year the twins were born.

The house on Rush Mountain still has its secret staircase, located behind a movable bookcase in my childhood bedroom. During the Underground Railroad years, it was used to access the root cellar, which in turn led to a tunnel that let out near a creek. According to the Switchback Historical Society, dozens of escaping slaves followed that creek into Canada . . . and freedom.

Having a secret staircase in the bedroom is enough to fire any kid’s imagination. The bookcase pushed against the wall has a hidden hinge, and if you trip the latch and move it just so, it pulls back just enough to slip behind with a flashlight. I didn’t mind the dank, fecund smell or even the spiders running for cover, because it was the perfect hiding place. As a girl, I had an imaginary friend named Glory—an escaping slave in a homespun pinafore and high-button boots. She and her parents ran away from a cruel master in the Deep South to find freedom in Canada, but Glory stayed with me for quite a while. She told me about the red clay soil and palmetto trees, the okra and hominy cakes and red peas in a dish called Hoppin’ John, and black-eyed peas topped with spicy chow chow. Like me, Glory was overly preoccupied with food, and we perused library books about regional cuisine together. There was a time—right around my parents’ divorce, I believe—when Glory was as real to me as my other best friend, a dog named Rocket.

Glory left me a couple of years after my father left the family. She was like a beloved doll I didn’t play with but didn’t want to throw away. I got used to the house without Dad. Gran and I made more cooking videos, tended the garden, picked apples, made maple syrup.

As the production crew drives up the last stretch of the winding road, I tell Martin and Melissa about the family history. Elijah’s son, Jacob Rush, took over the sugarbush, and every generation since that time has carried on the tradition of cultivating the maples and rendering the sap into syrup. The farmhouse has been modernized and expanded over the years, but it’s still essentially the home Elijah built when he first came to Rush Mountain—two stories, a chimney at either end, and a big carriage house and stables, which later became the garage and equipment barn.

The heart of the home is the kitchen—the family’s central gathering place. Likewise, the bedrooms are numerous and large, probably because as a young man, Elijah expected to have a lot of kids. In the next generation, Jacob fulfilled that wish, taking a bride named Philomena, who had nine children. The shingled roof has gables facing in multiple directions for a view of the entire mountain—the trout pond that freezes for skating in the winter, the orchards and gardens, and of course the maple groves that have sustained my family for generations.

As we park in the driveway of the farmhouse where I grew up, a thousand memories flow through me.

Home. Breath and memory.

Standing here in the place where I was born brings everything back, the good and the bad, the constant and lasting reminders of how fragile life can be, how easily shattered when we least expect it. The little things we take for granted are suddenly the biggest things in the universe—remembering how beloved and precious the people in our lives are, so that when we do have to say goodbye to the joy and love, we do so knowing we did everything we could.

The air feels different on my skin. The smells—they’re different, too.

And that’s when I know for sure that a part of me has never truly left. I realize something else: Home is a place after all. A place I recognize, a part of my blood and bone. Finally, after a long journey that took me away and brought me back, I’ve come at last to the place where I belong. The only trouble is, I’m going to have to leave again, heading back to the life that’s waiting for me somewhere else.

There’s a wrap-around porch where Gran and I used to sit in the summertime, husking corn, shelling peas and beans, trimming vegetables or fruit. Some of my best dreams were born there, on that porch, with the sun slanting over us and the dogs flopped down at our feet, basking in the late-afternoon warmth.

On the wall behind the porch swing is an old world map, fading and tattered. I hung it there so I could show Gran the places I wanted to go—France and Thailand and Greece and the Cook Islands. I wanted to go everywhere in the world, not just to study art history or look at ancient ruins, but to find out how people live, particularly the foods they eat. It’s been an obsession of mine all my life. Gran never yearned to travel. I suppose it was because she was absolutely content with her life as it unfolded day by day, following the rhythm of the seasons and staying close to the people she loved.

It was Gran who would talk me down after a fight with my mom. You’d think, with this idyllic family farm, we would never have a day of trouble. You’d think. But a sugarbush family is like any other, vulnerable to the vagaries of our dreams and aspirations, our rivalries and jealousies, our disappointments and frustrations.

Now my mom comes out to greet us and shoos us toward the porch. We make our way through a gauntlet of pelting pinpricks of half-freezing rain. “Heavenly days,” she says, sounding breathless, “you made it!” She folds me into a brief, fierce hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Same here, Mom.” Everything about the day feels a bit warmer after that hug. I step back and make the introductions.

“I promised Annie I wouldn’t swoon over you,” Mom says to Martin, “but I might have to break that rule.”

“I’m okay with swooning,” Martin assures her, brushing aside the handshake and bringing her in for a hug. “Thank you for having us.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she says. By now, everyone is inside, wet boots and coats lining the mudroom. “I’ve got plenty of coffee all ready to go.”

My mother is a painter. It’s her lifelong passion. She works in a studio Dad built for her up over the garage. The room is filled with light, and she spends hours there, creating breathtaking landscapes with roiling skies and sweeping vistas. She also does intimate portraits and still lifes. When she paints, she disappears somewhere. You can be standing next to her, but she’s deep in the world of her painting and scarcely notices what’s right in front of her.

Perhaps one reason she and I used to get into arguments is that we have a lot in common. Like me, she wanted to travel the world, go to college, create a vibrant career around the things she loves to do.

Unlike me, my mother never pursued those old dreams of hers. Because something more important came up—family.

It’s amazing how quickly and thoroughly your priorities shift when there’s an unplanned pregnancy and a hurry-up marriage. You set everything aside to make room for the tiny new stranger coming into your life—uninvited, but desperately wanted and devotedly loved.

My brother, Kyle, came along, and my folks settled at the farm. Mom set aside her dream. Dad kept dreaming, but he hunkered down and tried to make it work. Eight years later, I was born. Considering what happened to my parents’ marriage, I was probably their last-ditch effort to stay together. And they did, for a good while. Ten years. That’s how old I was when Dad left.

Gran had a different idea about making dreams come true. She did it right there at home, late at night when the rest of the family slept. She was wide awake while everyone else was dreaming. As a young wife and mother who loved being in the kitchen, she discovered a talent for creative cookery. And so, with no formal training and nothing but a high school education, she wrote a cookbook. She had already edited the charity cookbook for the Switchback Congregational Church, meaning she pretty much had to write or rewrite all the donated recipes. After that, she figured she had enough experience to write a cookbook of her own from recipes she’d developed over the years.

I take a copy of the book from the shelf, hand it to Martin and tell him the story behind it. “Gran didn’t rest until she found a publisher. Not just any publisher, but a major house in Boston that specializes in illustrated cookbooks. It became a regional bestseller and stayed in print for more than a decade.”

“She must have been incredible,” Martin said. “Now I see where your inspiration comes from.”

I smile, warmed by the comment. “When I was a kid, I set a goal to make every recipe in the book, and I met that goal by the time I was a junior in high school. I’ve done some of the recipes so many times that I’ve memorized them.”

I flip through the book, able to recall the occasion that went along with each recipe. Gran’s maple-glazed pumpkin-spice cookies are a perfect example of a bake-sale item. They’re also the perfect cookie, if you ask me—spicy, soft and comforting with a glass of milk or a cup of tea. The recipe makes about three dozen cookies, which will disappear at a startling rate.

To make them (and I recommend that you do, because they are delicious in the extreme), you need a half cup of unsalted butter, softened by putting the stick in your apron pocket while you get out the mixer, the baking sheets and the rest of the ingredients. Combine the butter with a half cup of vegetable oil, a half cup of canned pumpkin, three-quarter cup of white sugar, three-quarter cup of brown sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla.

Beat in two eggs, fresh ones from your own henhouse, if possible. Then, with the mixer turning on low, add the dry ingredients—four cups of flour, one-fourth teaspoon baking soda, one-fourth teaspoon cream of tartar, a half teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pumpkin-pie spice.

Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets and flatten the scoops with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about nine minutes. As soon as the edges start to brown, they’re ready.

Make the glaze by combining three cups of powdered sugar with a half teaspoon of pumpkin-pie spice and about four tablespoons of maple syrup—just enough to create a thick consistency. Drizzle the icing over the warm cookies. Try not to eat them all while you wait for the glaze to set.

I’ve never been good at waiting. Things take as long as they take. Gran used to tell me that at Thanksgiving, when it seemed as if the turkey would never be done.

We all crowd into the big farmhouse. It’s warm inside, and the caterers hired for the shoot are putting out a spread of morning-glory muffins and trays of fruit. The camera crew starts setting up. For me, this is where the real picture comes into focus. I step inside the frame, relaxed and self-assured, knowing it’s where I belong.

I’m standing in the center of the big country kitchen, organizing the set-up. There’s a riverstone fireplace and a large painting on the wall, a landscape my mother did of Rush Mountain at the height of Vermont’s autumn glory. There’s no glory here now. Gray-toned winter light leaks in through the alcove windows that surround the scrubbed wooden dining table.

The table is hand-made of taphole maple by my grandfather. Back when he honed the planks smooth in his woodworking shop, he assumed he was merely being thrifty by finding a new use for the tapped-out maple trees of our sugarbush. A tapped-out tree no longer yields a sap run in the late-winter thaw. It has to be cut down and used for firewood or milled for lumber. Nowadays, taphole maple, with its patterns created by the spikes drilled into the wood, is not a matter of thrift. The distinctively patterned wood is highly prized by custom builders and marketed as a rare luxury item.

In the Vermont sugarbush area, it’s not rare at all, although most people wouldn’t know that.

I’ve always loved that table, not just the look of it, but its flaws as well. The scratches and divots it’s sustained through the years are a road map of its life with my family. The dark and light ripples of maplewood have been a silent witness to our family’s joys and celebrations, moments of soaring triumph, and sometimes trouble and tragedy. Its surface has been marred by spilled candle wax from countless birthdays, hot pans set down too soon, ink from an old-fashioned pen, broken pottery, an angry fist slamming down, a pattern scratched with a butter knife by a bored child.

While seated around the table, we’ve dealt with all of life. Straight-A report cards. Money troubles. Getting a varsity letter on the Switchback Wildcats swim team. A college scholarship. Laughter over everyday happenings—a new puppy, a failed cake recipe, a goofy joke perfectly delivered by my brother, Kyle, funny photos just back from being developed at the drugstore. Tears were shed at that table as well—Your father and I are getting a divorce. The dog died. Gramps had an accident.

Yet even through the worst of times, there was a sense of belonging. A safety net to catch me no matter how hard I fell.

My spot at the table was by the heating vent, next to Gran. In the 1950s, she moved up to Rush Mountain as a young bride from Boston, and she was always cold. I could feel the warm air wafting from the furnace, swinging my feet while I dawdled over homework or daydreamed while looking out the window at the snow-covered hills.

On baking days, we would spread out the flour-dusted rolling cloth and then we’d get to work creating pale circles of dough for pies or cookies. The scent of butter and sugar filled the air, luring Dad and Kyle and Gramps in from their chores, and Mom down from her painting studio above the garage. I always loved the way food—and Gran’s cooking in particular—brought people together. Through my eyes as a child, it was a kind of magic. When I open the pantry door for the film crew, I can still smell the yeasty aroma of Gran’s baking bread. Like the scars on the table, some things never fade away.

We film some footage in the house. Mom is fluttery, her voice high-pitched with nerves, but I hope the shots of the old-fashioned kitchen and rows of tin maple- syrup jugs will be usable. Afterward, we all head out to the sugarbush.

Her bewitching way with food and friends was at its most powerful during the sugar season. That’s when we collect the sap from the maples and boil it until it turns to maple syrup.

Timing and weather rule our world during those dark weeks at the tail end of winter. When the temperature thaws during the daylight hours and freezes at night, that’s when the sap runs like a faucet. It has to be collected at the peak of freshness and then boiled right away in the evaporator pans over in the sugarhouse. Forty gallons of sap, boiled to a temperature of 219 degrees Fahrenheit, yield a single gallon of syrup. But the moment you taste a drop of Sugar Rush on your tongue, you know it’s worth all the trouble. The work is exciting, miserable, muddy, gratifying and everything in between. On days when the sky spits some nasty combination of rain and snow down on the sugarbush, it’s the hardest labor imaginable. Slogging through the woods across frozen ground or sucking mud in temperatures that make you forget you have fingertips or toes.

Gran knew how to keep everyone happy during the sugaring-off. Her baking skills were legendary in Switchback. When word got out that she’d made a batch of fried doughboys or maple scones and was serving them warm in the sugarhouse, everyone came for a taste. Her baking created a party atmosphere. Workers and neighbors would stand around the huge stainless-steel evaporator pans. The wood-fired heat under the pans kept us all warm while we sampled her wonderful cookies and breads with hot cinnamon tea or coffee with cream. For the little ones, Gran would step outside the sugarhouse and drizzle boiling syrup over the snow. It would harden instantly into amber webs of sweetness.

During the sugar season my final year of high school, my chores were confined to the sugarhouse—managing and monitoring the boil. I didn’t mind that so much, because I could crank up the radio and daydream about the life I would have one day. I scheduled my hours at the evaporator pans to coincide with Fletcher Wyndham’s shift collecting and transporting the sap. I was no Celia Swank, but I knew I’d have no trouble at all inviting him into the sugarhouse. It’s warm and cavey inside, aglow from the fire. The whole place is redolent of maple-scented steam, curling up to the roof vents. Never hesitant to show off my baking skills, I’d made salted maple-pecan bars—the ones that had once won me a blue ribbon at the county fair.

It’s one of those treats that sells out first at any bake sale. You start with a soft shortbread crust, then add the maple-pecan filling and bake it until it looks like a pecan pie. After it cools slightly, drizzle with maple butter and then finish with a few pinches of fleur de sel. Fleur de sel is one of those small touches that elevates an ordinary dish. It’s something Gran would call a key ingredient. The flaky character of this salt makes for a delicate finish. Don’t bother using it in cooking, because it will only melt and salt the food. You want it to rest like weightless snowflakes atop the food, dissolving on the tongue at first bite and melding with the sweetness of the syrup.

It’s doubtful that Fletcher knew anything about fleur de sel, but as an eighteen-year-old boy, he knew that when you come into the sugarhouse after working in subzero temperatures, and the whole front of you is damp from spilled sap, and a girl gives you a warm, salty-sweet maple-pecan bar, it’s like spending a few minutes in heaven.

Never let anyone tell you that food isn’t a kind of love.

Yet even though I loved Fletcher Wyndham with every cell in my body, I lost him—not just once, but twice. Blame it on youth, or on bad choices or rotten luck or unfortunate timing; a broken heart doesn’t care how the love got lost. And I don’t mean lost like losing your car keys. I mean like losing a piece of yourself so that you don’t feel whole anymore. You walk around with a part of yourself missing, the way Fletcher’s dad is missing his leg—the incident that touched off a chain of events no one in Switchback could ever have foreseen.

After loving someone the way I loved Fletcher, it’s hard to open up again and let anyone else in.

There are things a person can’t leave behind, even when a relationship ends. You keep bracing yourself for the next disaster, the next problem, the next betrayal.

Gran always said you can’t spend your life mired in regrets. You have to move forward, so that’s what I did. I managed to put myself back together, eventually. I managed to move on, even though it meant heading across the country to LA and totally changing the course of my life.

Now I look at Martin, who is intently listening to the director. Martin must feel me looking at him, because he offers his trademark heart-winning smile.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

People who work with me on the show think I’m all that and more. Annie’s Yankee determination, they call it. She gets things done. She doesn’t take no for an answer. She’s like the Energizer Bunny.

What they don’t realize is that most of the time, all that energy they admire so much is driven by fear and insecurity. In this business, you can’t let anyone sense any kind of weakness, or you’re culled from the pack and left behind. As far as anyone knows, I’m a homegrown success story with a real shot at creating a hit TV show and a bright future.

That’s what I thought, too. It’s all been going extremely well . . . but now that we’re here with cameras rolling, I can’t help but feel a sense of impending disaster.

The weather sucks. The snow has melted prematurely this year, something we didn’t anticipate. The pristine winter woods is now a dun-colored swamp of bare maples, strung together with plastic tubing for the running sap, which doesn’t exactly create the homey image of those old-fashioned collection buckets people picture when they think of Vermont maple syrup. The sugarhouse, where the magic is supposed to happen, turns out to be too noisy and steamy for the crew to film. The lenses keep fogging up and the crackle of the fire and the clanging of utensils interfere.

When Melissa says something perky and friendly to Kyle, trying to draw him out, he stares at her blankly, clearly at a loss.

“So your brother,” she whispers to me later. “He’s incredibly good-looking.”

“Thanks,” I reply. “His wife thinks so, too.” Melissa can’t stand being single. She’s told me so herself.

“I’m not hitting on him,” she insists, dabbing at her nose with a tissue. “It’s just . . . is he okay? He seems like he might be kind of . . . simple.”

I burst out laughing. My brother? Simple? He’s run the entire operation since he graduated high school and our dad took off. Yet his discomfort on camera is extreme and makes him seem like a country bumpkin.

“No,” I tell Melissa. “Kyle is anything but simple. Just not fond of being in the limelight. He knows everything there is to know about maple syrup, though.”

She nods, then turns away to let out a sneeze. Anton, the director of the shoot, is having a whispered conversation with Martin. I’m not catching everything that’s being said, but I’m pretty sure I hear the dreaded I told you so.

When I was a kid, eavesdropping on my parents’ arguments, I honed my listening-in to a fine art. I could hear them quarreling from three rooms away. Huddled in the stairwell or under a window, I overheard them talking about broken dreams and family responsibilities, about the deep ache of unfulfillment, something I didn’t understand until I was much older.

Listening to my parents making each other miserable, I vowed that once I married, it would be forever. I would never get a divorce. It’s just too hard on the family.

My parents’ “forever” lasted until Kyle was eighteen and I was ten. Dad went all the way to Costa Rica and built a surf camp on a crescent-shaped curve of white sand, fringed by palm and coconut trees, zopilote birds circling overhead. The camp consisted of palm-thatched huts and an outdoor kitchen.

You would think it would be awesome to have a beach in Costa Rica to visit when you went to see your dad. The reality wasn’t awesome.

It was hot and there were mosquitos. Sure, I went crazy over the fresh fruit and produce—papaya and plantains, mamones and marañón, starfruit, zapote and coconut, most of it simply plucked from the gardens. But when it rained a lot, horrid-looking alligators would congregate at the mouth of the river where it flows into the ocean, and surfing would be called off for that day.

Worst of all, Dad had a girlfriend. Imelda. It seemed totally weird to me, hearing him speak Spanish to a woman who was a complete stranger. She had waist-length hair and big boobs and absolutely no interest in discovering who I was. At night when they would go off together to the room they shared, and I would be left with the loneliest, most left-out feeling in the world.

Even now, years later, when I see my father, I struggle to keep my resentment at bay. He and Mom drifted apart. It happens, especially when you marry young the way they did.

The one thing I loved unequivocally about my time in Costa Rica was the day I visited a cacao-bean grove. I’m determined to film a Key Ingredient episode there one day. During a day tour, I chatted up one of the cacao growers, with Dad serving as our interpreter. The grower had never left his village, because everything he needed was right there—food, family, security. He’d never been to school; his education consisted of working alongside his elders, gathering, fermenting and drying the cacao beans in an endless cycle of nature and labor.

I still remember the sense of shock I felt when I discovered that not only had he never tasted chocolate, he wasn’t even sure what was being made from his beans. When I gave him a bar of single-origin dark chocolate, made with nothing but cacao, sugar and cocoa butter, he peeled back the wrapper and held it in his hand for a long time. Then he broke off a piece and tasted the chocolate, and his face lit with wonder. He had no idea that the beans he grew and fermented under heaps of banana leaves could be transformed into something so rich, complex and delicious. The smile on his face was unforgettable, completely genuine and filled with joy.

It was one of those rewarding moments I hope to find for the show, when something unexpected and utterly charming presents itself. I can picture exactly how I would film and edit the scene, scoring it to highlight the farmer’s surprise and delight when he tastes the fruits of his labor.

Now, as we’re muddling through today’s filming, I’m not sure about anything. A feeling of devastation curls around my heart.

Martin is taking a break at the catering table now, chatting with the local caterer contracted to keep the crew fed during the shoot. The two women aren’t much younger than I am, yet they seem like children as they babble and practically faint in the presence of Martin Harlow.

Although I’m standing nearby, they don’t even see me. During filming, if you’re not the star or director, you’re invisible. So I just hang around and observe. By now, I’m used to Martin’s good looks and charm, but I do remember seeing him for the first time and being struck by his Texas-born-and-bred handsomeness and the utterly magnetic pull of his charm when he makes eye contact with you and smiles.

“I’m always starving after a long trip,” he confesses to the catering girls. “This spread looks amazing.”

There’s an urn of fresh coffee from a local roaster and a tray of caramelized delicata squash with burrata cheese lightly drizzled in balsamic, an abundant bread basket, smoked trout and a salad of organic greens.

I’ve always believed hunger can mean different things. Sometimes you’re just hungry, like after cardio training. That’s when you crave carbs—fettucini covered in parm, pommes Anna made with paper-thin potato slices, butter and herbs, or salted rosemary sourdough with a wedge of cheese.

Then there’s the hunger that can’t be filled by food. The cravings of the heart and spirit are not so easily satisfied.

One of the caterers talks about her studies at the U in Burlington. “I’m a nursing major,” she says. “I want to specialize in critical care.”

“Wow. Makes my job sound pretty lightweight in comparison.” Self-effacing charm. That’s his specialty.

“You’ve got millions of fans on YouTube who’d disagree with that,” she says. “That’s why I signed up for working this event. I wanted to meet you in person.”

“Hey, really? You don’t say. That’s cool.” The aw-shucks delivery is totally natural. Back when we first met, I couldn’t get enough of it. I still can’t, come to think of it.

“I’ve been checking out the show’s website. I love the whole concept behind it, the way you’ll be highlighting the key ingredient of each episode and building the story around it.” She’s almost but not quite gushing. Is gushing even allowed on set?

“That’s our special sauce,” he says, appropriating a phrase I’d used in pitching the show to the production company. “We’re hoping it will become the thing that sets us apart from all the other stuff that’s out there. Glad you like it.”

“It’s great. It’s going to be so different from run-of-the-mill cooking shows.”

“I’m all about keeping it fresh,” he declares. His assistant comes over and steals him to get him miked up again for filming.

The caterers keep talking.

“ . . . almost instantly became a YouTube sensation,” one of them says. “That’s what I heard. With looks like that, you don’t have to wonder why he got so many views.”

The caterers have no idea I’m the show’s creator, so they speak freely in front of me. They don’t even seem to notice me. I’m a ghost.

“ . . . those videos online. They’re addictive, aren’t they?” says one of them.

“What I heard was that some talent scout spotted the guy working at a food cart in Central Park and made a film and put it up on YouTube,” the other says in a gossipy voice. “I read all about it in People.”

Wrong, wrong and wrong. It wasn’t a talent scout who spotted him. It was me. And it wasn’t Central Park; it was Washington Square.

I shouldn’t get my knickers in a twist over the inaccuracies. The show is going to be a hit. Nobody will care how it came into being. But God bless People for picking up on the buzz and spreading the word through nail salons and waiting rooms around the country.

“I love all the places they’re going to take the show,” she says.

I love my job. There is absolutely nothing to complain about. Assuming it’s as big a hit as Martin’s YouTube videos, we’ll soon be able to toss the budget to the wind and go fishing for blue grenadier in Tasmania or head to that cacao grove in Costa Rica.

By the end of today’s shoot, I no longer love my job. Nothing went right. Mud, rain, noisy equipment, take after take of shots that just weren’t working. I hold back tears as I say goodbye to my mom and brother.

While I’m melting down, Martin steps up. “Listen,” he says, touching me beneath the chin and looking into my eyes. “You don’t have to do everything. We have a postproduction team now—a good one.”

And then something happens between Martin and me. It’s been happening for a while, but as my pulse accelerates, the simmering attraction turns into genuine caring and regard. He leans down and kisses me, and it feels exactly right. I feel as if he’s rescuing me from drowning. Somehow, he makes my heart start beating again.

Back at the Century City studio, the postproduction team works to create the magic that was lacking during the shoot. I can’t eat or sleep or even breathe during this process, because it’s impossible to imagine turning the Switchback disaster into something viewers will want to watch. Martin and Melissa pitch in with voiceovers and dubbing. Even though I know a good post-production job can correct a multitude of sins, I’m nervous about the final cut.

The lead editor doesn’t rest until she finds the perfect soundtrack, one that complements our opening theme. It’s a simple, clean melody that stays in your head—in a good way—and holds your attention. The ending sequence runs like a music video to “Autumn Sweater” by Yo La Tengo, choreographed by editing magic. It’s a risky move, but the show is meant to appeal to a younger demographic than traditional cooking shows, and so we go for it.

While the final cut airs, I sit in the editing suite at the studio in a rolling chair, not daring to move. Since we didn’t release the episode early for critics, the whole world gets a first look at the same time. My heart is full to bursting. I don’t dare to breathe. Staring at the screen, I can’t tell if it’s a disaster or a hit. Panic pulses through me.

Then Tiger comes in with her smartphone and laptop. “Check it out,” she says, showing me a long list of social-media feedback. “Viewers are totally loving it.”

As the closing sequence finishes and the credits roll, Martin comes in with a bouquet of flowers. He scoops me up out of my chair and kisses me, and we go to his place. We’re so high with exhilaration that our lovemaking is filled with as much laughter as passion.

The next morning, we wake up early to check the news.

“They loved us,” Martin says, staring at the screen with his eyes aglow with Christmas-morning wonder. “Baby, they loved us.”

The LA Times features a photo of Martin leaning against the rough lumber wall of the sugarhouse, sampling a fried doughboy dipped in freshly rendered syrup, warm from the evaporator pan. “Harlow’s infectious love of food will make you hungry,” the caption reads. Variety shows a publicity shot of Melissa, noting her charming relish in preparing a dish and the seductive way she invites viewers to sample it.

The ratings are respectable. Better than respectable, according to the executive producer. Online views of the trailer pile up, hour by hour. Views of the full episode on the network’s website surpass anything they’ve ever aired before. People are watching. More importantly, they’re sharing. Clips and links are making their way into people’s homes, into their friends’ homes, and into the cubicles of people at work all over the globe. According to the ratings service we’re subscribed to, the link is traveling faster than the speed of light through the digital ether, reaching around the world.

Even though I’m supposed to be a stoic New Englander, the tears stream down my face. “You did it,” I tell him. “You saved my dream. I was so worried it would flop.”

“We did it,” he says. “We’re a great team.”

The network orders another thirteen episodes to follow the original eight. We’ll get a bigger budget and more creative input, too.

Martin is with me when we get the news. I slump against him, boneless with relief and gratitude. “You’re right,” I say. “We are a good team. I’m so full of ideas, I might explode.”

“Don’t explode,” he says. “I’ve got some ideas of my own. Let’s celebrate.”

He organizes everything, refusing to let me lift a finger. All I have to do is show up at the executive producer’s Malibu beach house wearing something nice.

My “something nice” wardrobe is limited. I’ve been working so hard on the show that I haven’t had time for anything else. Sorting through my closet, I come across my favorite date-night dress, which I haven’t worn since . . . since Fletcher. It’s a fitted sheath in the yummiest shade of royal blue you ever saw. The last time I wore it, I was dancing in Fletcher Wyndham’s arms, having no idea we were about to fall apart.

Determined to make new memories, I put on the dress and add my favorite necklace, a fiery opal pendant that used to belong to my grandmother.

The gorgeous cliff-top beach house is deserted. I check my phone, worried now that I got the day or the time wrong. But no, there’s Martin’s car in the driveway. He drives a BMW roadster convertible. “Sometimes I have to spoil myself,” he told me when he bought it a few months ago.

I knock at the front door, and Martin himself answers. For tonight, he’s dropped the super-cool, scruffy-chef look in favor of slacks and a fitted white dress shirt, open at the throat, the cuffs rolled back. He’s had a fresh shave and a haircut. He looks amazing.

“Where is everybody?” I ask, glancing around the house. Incredible aromas waft from the kitchen, but there’s no one in sight. “Am I horribly early?”

“You’re just in time.” He bends down and gently kisses me.

“I don’t get it.”

“This way.” Taking my hand, he leads me out to the deck overlooking the beach. The lights are like a diamond necklace along the shore. Blooming belladonna trumpets waft their intoxicating scent into the air. Music drifts from unseen speakers.

At the edge of the deck is a beautifully set table with a white linen cloth and candles in crystal chimneys. To one side is a silver ice bucket with a bottle of bubbly. Something’s wrong. The table is set for two.

“Martin.” I balk, feeling suspicious. “What’s going on?”

“We’re celebrating.”

“I can see that. So where’s everyone else?”

“It’s just the two of us. Leon said we could use his place.” He takes the bottle from the ice bucket—Dom Pérignon. I’ve never tasted it before. Then he picks up a saber and, with classic panache, slices the top off the bottle. The cork disappears over the cliff, and the froth at the top of the bottle sprinkles the deck. Martin turns to me with a grin. “One of my favorite party tricks.”

“I can see that.”

He expertly fills the champagne flutes, and we toast each other. “To our perfect partnership,” he says.

“To The Key Ingredient,” I say.

The champagne is beyond delicious, the bubbles scintillating on my tongue and throat. I close my eyes, savoring that first sip. When I open my eyes, Martin sets down both our glasses, then takes my hand.

“I’ve told you many times that I like the best of everything,” he said, pressing a kiss to the back of my hand. “And that’s why I chose you, Annie. You’re the best.”

The best what? Girlfriend? Producer? Partner?

He takes a small box from his pocket. And I nearly collapse in shock. I can hardly breathe as he opens the box and takes out a glittering diamond ring. This can’t be happening. Can it? To me?

“Marry me, Annie Rush. Let’s make this permanent.”

I look down at the ring. And then up at Martin. His smile blinds me. My chest is tight, the way panic feels, and my throat heats with tears. “You’re serious,” I whisper.

“I’m serious,” he agrees. “What do you say, Annie?”

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Read on for a sneak peek at Susan Wiggs’s unforgettable new novel

FAMILY TREE

On sale August 9, 2016

Now

“I CAN'T BELIEVE we’re arguing about a water buffalo.” Annie Rush reached up for her husband’s shirt collar, turning it neatly down.

“Then let’s quit arguing,” he said. “It’s a done deal.” He sat down and shoved first one foot, then the other, into his cowboy boots—the ridiculously expensive ones she had given him last Christmas. She’d never regretted the purchase, though, because they looked so good on him.

“It’s not a done deal. We can still cancel. The budget for the show is already stretched to the limit. And a water buffalo? It’s going to be fifteen hundred pounds of stubborn.”

“C’mon, babe.” Martin stood, his blue eyes twinkling like the sun on a swimming pool. “Working with a live animal on the show will be an adventure. The viewers will love it.”

She blew out a breath in exasperation. Married couples fought about the dumbest things. Who left the cap off the toothpaste? Whether it was quicker to take the Ventura Freeway or the Golden State. The number of syllables in broccoli. The optimum thermostat setting. Why he couldn’t clean his whiskers out of the sink.

And now this. The water buffalo.

“Where in my job description does it say water-buffalo wrangler?” she asked.

“The buffalo’s an integral part of the show.” He gathered up his keys and briefcase and went downstairs, boots ringing on the hardwood.

“It’s a crazy misuse of the production budget,” she stated, following him. “This is a cooking show, not Wild Kingdom.”

“It’s The Key Ingredient,” he countered. “And when the ingredient of the week is mozzarella, we need a buffalo.”

Annie gritted her teeth to keep from prolonging the fight. She reminded herself that underneath the fight was their marriage. Even at fifteen hundred pounds, the buffalo was a small thing. It was the big things that mattered—his effortless way of chopping garlic and chives as he cooked for her. His dedication to the show they had created together. The steamy shower sex they’d had the night before.

“It’s gonna be great,” he said. “Trust me.” Slipping one arm around her waist, he claimed a brief kiss.

Annie reached up and touched his freshly shaven cheek. The last thing she needed was a dispute with Martin. He had no sense of the oddity of his idea. He had always believed the show’s appeal stemmed from the outlandish. She was equally convinced that the success of their show stemmed from its authenticity. That, and a talented chef whose looks and charisma held an audience spellbound for an hour each week.

“I trust,” she whispered, rising on tiptoe for another kiss. He was the star of the show, after all. He had the ear of the executive producer and was used to getting his way. The details, he left to Annie—his wife, his partner, his producer. It was up to her to make things happen.

With the argument still ringing through her head, she braced her hands on the sill of the window overlooking the garden of their town house. She had a million things to do today, starting with the People magazine interview—a behind-the-scenes piece about the show.

A window washer was preparing to climb a scaffold and get to work. Martin passed by on his way to the garage, pausing to say something to the worker, who grinned and nodded. Charming Martin.

A moment later, his silver BMW roadster shot out of the parking garage. She didn’t know why he was in such a hurry. The Monday run-through was hours away.

She sighed and turned away, trying to shake off the emotional residue of the argument. Gran was fond of saying that a fight was never about the thing being fought over. The water buffalo wasn’t the point. All arguments, at their core, were about power. Who had it. Who wanted it. Who would surrender. Who would prevail.

No mystery there. Annie surrendered, Martin prevailed. That was how it worked. Because she let it? Or because she was a team player? Yes, they were a team. A successful team with their own show on an emerging network. The compromises she made were good for them both. Good for their marriage.

Another thing Gran would say was imprinted on Annie’s heart—remember the love. When times get hard and you start wondering why you married him in the first place, remember the love.

Fortunately for Annie, this was not hard to do. Martin was a catch. He was the kind of handsome that made women stop and stare. His aw-shucks charm wasn’t confined to the show. He knew how to make her laugh. When they came up with an idea together, he would sweep her into his arms and dance her around the kitchen. When he talked about the family they’d have one day, the babies, she would melt with yearning. He was her husband, her partner, an irreplaceable element in her life’s work. Okay, she thought. Okay, then. Whatever.

Annie checked the time and looked at her work e-mail—all her e-mail was work—to discover that the scissors lift they’d rented to install a new outdoor lighting set was having mechanical problems.

Great. One more thing to worry about.

The phone rang, and the screen lit up with a picture of a cat. “Melissa,” said Annie, putting her phone on speaker. “What’s up?”

“Just checking in,” said Melissa. She seemed to check in a lot, especially lately. “Did you see that e-mail about the cow?”

“Buffalo,” Annie corrected her. “And yes. Also, I have a note about a lift that’s not working. And I’ve got CJ from People coming. So I guess I’ll be in late. Like, really late. Tell everyone to sit tight until after lunch.” She paused, bit her lip. “Sorry. I’m cranky this morning. Forgot to eat breakfast.”

“Go eat something. Okay, gorgeous,” Melissa said brightly. “Gotta bounce.”

Annie turned back to her computer to double check the meeting time with the reporter. CJ Morris was doing an in-depth piece on the show—not just its stars, Martin Harlow and Melissa Judd, but the entire production, from its debut as a minor cable program to the hit it had become. CJ had already interviewed Martin and Melissa. She was coming over this morning to visit with Annie, the show’s creator. It was an unusual slant for a magazine article; casual readers craved gossip and photos of the stars. Annie hoped to make the most of the opportunity.

While waiting for the reporter, she did what a producer did—she used every spare minute to handle things. She studied the rental agreement for the lift to find a phone number. She and Martin had quarreled about that piece of equipment, too. The cost of the lift with the best safety rating had been much higher than the hydraulic one. Martin insisted on going with the cheaper one—over Annie’s objections. As usual, she’d surrendered and he’d prevailed. Since they’d blown the budget on the water buffalo, she had to skimp on something else. Now the hydraulic lift was malfunctioning and it was up to Annie to deal with the issue.

Enough, she told herself. She thought again of breakfast and opened the fridge. Bulgarian yogurt with maple granola? No, her empty stomach rejected the idea of yogurt. Also those French breakfast radishes that had looked so enticing at the farmers’ market. Even a piece of toast didn’t appeal. Okay, so no breakfast. One thing at a time.

She went to the powder room and ran a comb through her long, dark hair, which had been flat-ironed into submission yesterday. Then she checked her lipstick and manicure. Both cherry red, perfectly matched. The black pencil skirt, platform sandals and flowy white top were cool and casual, a good choice in the current heat wave. She wanted to look pulled together for the interview, even though there wouldn’t be a photographer today.

The buzzer sounded, and she hurried to the intercom. Yikes, the reporter was early.

“Delivery for Annie Rush,” said the voice on the other end.

Delivery? “Oh . . . sure, come on up.” She buzzed the caller in.

An enormous bouquet of lush, tropical blooms came teetering up the steps. “Please, watch your step,” Annie said, holding open the door. “Just . . . on the counter there is fine.”

Stargazer lilies and white tuberoses trumpeted their spicy scent into the room. Baby’s breath added a lacy touch to the arrangement. The delivery woman set down the vase and brushed a wisp of black hair off her forehead. “Enjoy, ma’am,” she said. She was young, with tattoos and piercings in unfortunate places. The circles under her eyes hinted at a sleepless night, and a fading yellowish bruise shadowed her cheekbone. Annie tended to notice things like that.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Um, sure.” The girl nodded at the bouquet. “Looks like someone’s really happy with you.”

Annie handed her a bottle of water from the fridge along with a twenty-dollar bill. “Take care, now,” she said.

“Will do.” The girl slipped out and hurried down the stairs.

Annie plucked the small florist’s envelope from the forest of blooms—Rosita’s Express Flowers. The card had a simple message: I’m sorry. Babe, let’s talk about this.

Ah, Martin. The gesture was typical of him—lavish, over-the-top . . . irresistible. He’d probably called in the order on the way to work. She felt a wave of affection, and her irritation flowed away. The message was exactly what she needed. And then she felt a troubling flicker of guilt. Sometimes she worried that she didn’t believe in him enough, didn’t trust the decisions he made. Could be that he was right about the water buffalo after all. It might end up being one of their most popular episodes.

The gate security buzzer sounded again, signaling CJ’s arrival.

Annie opened the door and was hit by a wall of intense heat. “Come on in before you melt,” she said.

“Thanks. This weather is insane. I heard on the radio we’re going to break a hundred again today. And so early in the year.”

Annie stepped aside and ushered her into the town house. She’d fussed over the housekeeping, and now she was grateful for Martin’s fresh flowers, adding a touch of elegance. “Make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink? I have a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge.”

“Oh, that sounds good. Caffeine-free? I’m off caffeine. And the tannin bothers me, too. Is it tannin-free?”

“Sorry, no.” No matter how long she lived here, Annie would never get used to the myriad dietary quirks of Southern Californians.

“Maybe just some water, then. If it’s bottled. I’m early,” CJ said apologetically. “Traffic is so unpredictable, I gave myself plenty of time.”

“No problem,” Annie assured her. “My grandmother used to always say, if you can’t be on time, be early.” She went to the fridge while the reporter put down her things and took a seat on the sofa.

At least Annie could impress with the water. A sponsor had sent samples of their fourteen-dollar-a-bottle mineral water, sourced from an aquifer fifteen hundred feet underground in the Andes and bottled before the air touched it.

“What a great kitchen,” CJ remarked, looking around.

“Thanks. It’s where all the delicious things happen,” Annie said, handing CJ the chilled bottle.

“I can imagine. So, your grandmother,” CJ said, studying a vintage cookbook on the coffee table. “The same one who wrote this book, right?” She put her phone in recording mode and set it on the coffee table. “Let’s talk about her.”

Annie loved talking about Gran. She missed her every day, but the remembrances kept her alive in Annie’s heart. “Gran published it back in the sixties. Her name was Anastasia Carnaby Rush. My grandfather called her Sugar, in honor of the family maple syrup brand, Sugar Rush.”

“Love it. So is this the one?” CJ paged through the book.

“It was a regional bestseller in Vermont and New England for years. It’s out of print now, but I can send you a digital copy.”

“Great. Was she trained as a chef?”

“Self-taught,” Annie said. “She had a degree in English, but cooking was her greatest love.” Even now, long after her grandmother had died, Annie could picture her in the sunny farmhouse kitchen, happily turning out meals for the family every day of the year. “Gran had a special way with food,” Annie continued. “She used to say that every recipe had a key ingredient. That’s the ingredient that defines the dish.”

“Got it. So that’s why each episode of the show focuses on one ingredient. Was it hard to pitch the idea to the network?”

Annie chuckled. “The pitch wasn’t hard. I mean, come on, Martin Harlow.” She showed off another cookbook—Martin’s latest. The cover featured a photo of him looking even more delicious than the melty, golden-crusted marionberry pie he was making.

“Exactly. He’s the perfect combination of Wild West cowboy and Cordon Bleu chef.” CJ beamed, making no secret of her admiration. She perused the magazines on the coffee table. Us Weekly. TV Guide. Variety—all had featured the show in the past six months. “Are these the latest articles?”

“Yes. Help yourself to anything that catches your eye.” Annie’s other prized book lay nearby—a copy of Lord of the Flies, a vintage clothbound volume in a sturdy slipcase, one of three copies she possessed. She hoped the reporter wouldn’t ask about that.

CJ focused on other things—a multipage spread in Entertainment Weekly featuring Martin cooking in his signature faded jeans and butcher’s apron over a snug white T-shirt, offering a glimpse of his toned and sculpted bod. His cohost, Melissa, hovered at his side, her pulled-together persona a perfect foil for his casual élan. The caption asked, “Have we found the next Jamie Oliver?”

Food as entertainment. It was a direction Annie hadn’t contemplated for The Key Ingredient. But who was she to argue with ratings success?

“He has definitely come into his own on the show,” CJ remarked. “But today’s about you. You’re in the limelight.”

Annie talked briefly about her background—film school and broadcasting, with a focus on culinary arts, which she’d studied under a special program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. What she didn’t mention was the sacrifice she’d made to move from the East Coast to LA. That was part of Annie’s story, not the show’s story.

“When did you make the move to the West Coast?”

“Seems like forever ago. It’s been about ten years.”

“Straight out of college, then?”

“That’s right. I didn’t expect to wind up in LA before the ink on my diploma was dry, but that’s pretty much how it went,” Annie said. “It seems sudden, but not to me. By the time I was six, I knew I wanted to have a show about the culinary arts. My earliest memories are of my grandmother in the kitchen with Ciao Italia on the local PBS station. I used to picture Gran as Mary Ann Esposito, teaching the world to cook. I loved the way she spoke about food, handled it, expressed herself through it, talked and wrote about it, and shared it. Then I’d do cooking demos for Gran, and later for anyone who would sit through one of my presentations. I even filmed myself doing a cooking show. I had those old VHS tapes turned into digital files to preserve the memories. Martin and I keep meaning to sit down and watch them one of these days.”

“What a great story. You found your passion early.”

Her passion had been born in her grandmother’s kitchen when Annie was too young to read or write. But she’d never been too young to dream. “I assumed everyone was passionate about food. Still do, and it’s always a surprise when I find out otherwise.”

“So you were into food even before you met Martin.”

Martin again. The world assumed he was the most interesting thing about Annie. How had she let that happen? And why? “Actually,” she said, “everything started with a short documentary I made about Martin, back when he had a food cart in Manhattan.”

“That very first short went viral, didn’t it? And yet you’re still behind the scenes. Do you ever want to be in front of the camera?”

Annie kept a neutral expression on her face. Of course she did, every day. That had been her dream, but the world of commercial broadcasting had other ideas. “I’m too busy with the production to think about it,” she said.

“You never considered being a cohost? I’m just thinking about what you said earlier about those cooking demos . . .”

Annie knew what CJ was getting at. Reporters had a way of sneaking into private places and extracting information. CJ wouldn’t find any dirt here, though. “Leon Mackey, the executive producer and owner of the show, wanted a cohost to keep Martin from turning into a talking head. Martin and I actually did make a few test reels together,” she said. “Even before we married, we wanted to be a team both on camera and off. It seemed romantic and unique, a way to set us apart from other shows.”

“Exactly,” CJ said. “So it didn’t work out?”

Annie’s hopes had soared when she and Martin had made those early reels; she thought they might choose her. But no. The show needed someone more relatable, they said. More polished, they said. What they didn’t say was that Annie’s look was too ethnic. Her olive-toned skin and dark corkscrew curls didn’t jibe with the girl-next-door vision the EP was going for. “Not the right fit for this show,” Leon had said. “You look like Jasmine Lockwood’s kid sister. Could confuse viewers.”

Jasmine Lockwood hosted a wildly popular show about comfort food on the same network. Annie didn’t see the resemblance, but she surrendered, putting the show ahead of her ego.

“Anyway,” she said with a bright smile, “judging by the ratings, we found the right combination for the show.”

CJ sipped the water, holding the straight-sided glass bottle up to admire it. “When did Melissa Judd enter the picture?”

Annie paused. She couldn’t very well say it was when Martin met her in his yoga class, even though that had been the case. At the time, Melissa had a gig as a late-night shopping-network host. Her looks, she claimed in the pretaping interview with a straight face, had always gotten in the way, because people failed to see past her beauty to recognize her talent.

“She and Martin had that elusive chemistry that’s impossible to manufacture,” Annie told the reporter, “so we knew we had to have her.” Annie didn’t mention the prep work it had taken to get the new cohost ready for the role. Melissa’s delivery was shrill and rough, her late-night-huckster voice designed to keep people awake. Annie was tasked with bringing out Melissa’s more hidden gifts. She had worked long and hard to cultivate the perky, all-American girl persona. To her credit, Melissa caught on quickly. She and Martin became a dynamic on-air team.

“Well, you certainly put together a winning combination,” CJ observed.

“Um . . . thanks.” Sometimes, when she observed the easy banter between the two hosts—more often than not, banter she had painstakingly scripted—Annie still caught herself wishing she could be in front of the camera, not just behind the scenes. But the formula was working. Besides, Melissa had an ironclad contract.

Annie knew she should bring the conversation back around to her role on the show, but she was thinking about breakfast again. Scones, she thought. With a sea-salt crust and maple butter.

“Tell me about the first episode,” CJ suggested. “I just streamed it again last night. The key ingredient was maple syrup, which is kind of perfect, considering your background.”

“If by ‘perfect,’ you mean ‘borderline disaster,’ then yes,” Annie said with a grin. “Maple syrup has been my family’s business for generations.” She gestured at a painting on the wall, a landscape her mother had done of Rush Mountain in Vermont. “It seemed like the ideal way to launch the show. The production set up, literally, in my own backyard—the Rush family sugarbush in Switchback, Vermont.”

She took a breath, feeling a wave of nausea. She couldn’t tell whether the discomfort was caused by the memory or by the empty stomach. Could be she was worried about riling up something from her past. She still remembered that feeling of unease, returning to the small town where she’d grown up, surrounded by everyone who had known her for years.

Fortunately, the budget had only permitted them to spend seventy-two hours on set there, and each hour was crammed with activity. Every possible thing had gone wrong. The snow had melted prematurely, turning the pristine winter woods into a brown swamp of denuded trees, strung together with plastic tubing for the running sap, like IV meds reaching from tree to tree. The sugarhouse, where the magic was supposed to happen, had been too noisy and steamy for the camera crew to film. Her brother, Kyle, had been so uncomfortable on camera that someone had actually asked if he was “simple.” Melissa had come down with a cold, and Martin had spoken the dreaded I told you so.

Annie had been certain right then and there that her career—her dreamed-about, sought-after, can’t-miss show—would end with a whimper, becoming a footnote on a list of failed broadcasts. She’d been devastated.

And that was when Martin had rescued her. Back at the Century City studio, the postproduction team had worked overtime, cutting and splicing images, using stock footage, reshooting with computer-generated material, focusing on the impossibly sexy, smart host—Martin Harlow—and his well-trained, preternaturally chipper sidekick, Melissa Judd.

When the final cut aired, Annie had sat in the editing suite in a rolling chair, not daring to move. On the verge of panic, she’d held her breath . . . until an assistant had arrived with her smartphone, showing a long list of social-media feedback. Viewers were loving it.

The critics had adored the show, too, praising Martin’s infectious love of food as he leaned against the sugarhouse wall, sampling a fried doughboy dipped in freshly rendered syrup. They applauded Melissa’s charming relish in preparing a dish and the seductive way she invited viewers to sample it.

The ratings were respectable, and online views of the trailer piled up, hour by hour. People were watching. More importantly, they were sharing. The link traveled through the digital ether, reaching around the world. The network ordered another thirteen episodes to follow the original eight. Annie had looked at Martin with tears of relief streaming down her face. “You did it,” she’d told him. “You saved my dream.”

“Judging by the expression on your face,” CJ said, “it was an emotional moment.”

Annie blinked, surprised at herself. Work was work. She didn’t often get teary-eyed over it. “Just remembering how relieved I felt that it all worked out,” she said.

“So was a celebration in order?”

“Sure.” Annie smiled at the memory. “Martin celebrated with a candlelight dinner . . . and a marriage proposal.”

“Whoa. Oh my gosh. You’re Cinderella.”

They had married eight years ago. Eight busy, productive, successful years. Sometimes, when they went over-the-top with expensive stunts, like diving for oysters, foraging for truffles, or milking a Nubian goat, Annie would catch herself wondering what happened to her key ingredient, the original concept for the show. The humble idea was buried in the lavish episodes she produced these days. There were moments when she worried that the program had strayed from her core dream, smothered by theatrics and attention-grabbing segments that had nothing to do with her initial vision.

The show had taken on a life of its own, she reminded herself, and that might be a good thing. With her well-honed food savvy and some nimble bookkeeping, she made it all work, week in and week out.

“You’re the key ingredient,” Martin would tell her. “Everything came together because of you. Next time we’re in contract talks, we’re going to negotiate an on-camera role for you. Maybe even another show.”

She didn’t want another show. She wanted The Key Ingredient. But she’d been in LA long enough to know how to play the game, and a lot of the game involved patience and vigilance over costs. The challenge was staying exciting and relevant—and on budget.

CJ made some swift notes on her tablet. Annie tried to be subtle about checking the time and thinking about the day ahead, with errands stacking up like air traffic over LAX.

She had to pee. She excused herself and headed to the upstairs bathroom.

And that was when it hit her. She was late. Not late to work—it was already established that she was going to be late to the studio. But late late.

Her breath caught, and she stood at 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.”

“Are 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.”

“How can I help? Can I come along? Lend a hand?”

“That’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 knows the chef there. We can finish talking over an incredible meal.”

CJ put together her bag. “Bribery will get you everywhere. I heard there was a six-week wait for a table there.”

“Unless you’re with Martin Harlow. I’ll have my assistant book it and give you a call.” Annie bade the reporter a hasty farewell.

Then she grabbed her things—keys, phone, laptop, table, wallet, water bottle, production notes—and stuffed them into her already overstuffed business bag. For a second, she pictured the bag she’d carry as a busy young mom—diapers and pacifiers . . . What else?

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God. I don’t know a thing about babies.”

She bolted for the door, then clattered down the steps of the Laurel Canyon town house complex. Their home was fashionable, modern, a place they could barely afford. The show was gaining momentum, and Martin would be up for contract again soon. They’d need a bigger place. With a baby’s room. A baby’s room.

The heat wave hit her like a furnace blast. Even for springtime in SoCal, this was extreme. People were being urged to stay inside, drink plenty of water, keep out of the sun.

Above the walkway to the garage, the guy on a scaffold was still washing windows. Annie heard a shout, but didn’t see the falling squeegee until it was too late. The thing hit the sidewalk just inches from her.

“Hey,” she called. “You dropped something.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the workman called back. Then he turned sheepish. “Really. The thing just slipped out of my hands.”

She felt a swift chill despite the muggy air. She had to be careful now. She was pregnant. The idea filled her with wonder and joy. And the tiniest frisson of fear.

She unlocked the car with her key fob, and it gave a little yip of greeting. Seat belt, check. Adjust the mirror. She turned for a few seconds, gazing at the backseat. It was cluttered with recycled grocery bags, empty serving trays and bowls from the last taping, when the key ingredient had been saffron. One day there would be a car seat back there. For a baby. Maybe they’d name her Saffron.

Annie forced herself to be still for a moment, to take everything in. She shut off the radio. Flexed and unflexed her hands on the steering wheel. Then she laughed aloud, and her voice crescendoed to a shout of pure joy. She pictured Martin’s face when she told him and smiled all the way up the on-ramp. She drove with hypervigilance, already feeling protective of the tiny invisible stranger she carried. Shimmering with heat, the freeway was clogged with traffic lined up in a sluggish queue. The crumbly brown hills of the canyon flowed past. Smog hovered overhead like the dawn of the nuclear winter.

LA was so charmless and overbuilt. Maybe that was the reason so much imaginative work was produced here. The dry hills, concrete desert and dull skies were a neutral backdrop for creating illusion. Through the studios and sound stages, people could be taken away to places of the heart—lakeshore cottages, seaside retreats, days gone by, autumn in New England, cozy winter lodges . . .

We’re going to have to move, thought Annie. No way we’re raising a child in this filthy air.

She wondered if they could spend summers in Vermont. Her idyllic childhood shone with the sparkle of nostalgia. A Switchback traffic jam might consist of the neighbor’s tractor waiting for a cow that had wandered outside the fence. There was no such thing as smog, just fresh, cool air, sweet with the scent of the mountains and trout streams. It was an unspoiled paradise, one she had never fully appreciated until she’d left it behind.

She’d known about the pregnancy all of five minutes and she was already planning the baby’s life. Because she was so ready. At last, they were going to have a family. A family. It was the most important thing in the world to her. It always had been.

She thought about the fight this morning and then remembered the flower delivery. This moment was going to change everything for them, in the best possible way. The stupid quarrels that blazed like steam vents from a geyser suddenly evaporated. Had they really argued about a water buffalo? A scissors lift? The missing cap on the toothpaste tube?

Her phone vibrated, signaling a text message from Tiger, her assistant. MAJOR MECHANICAL TROUBLE WITH THE SCAFFOLD. NEED U NOW.

Sorry, Tiger, Annie thought. Later.

After she told Martin about the baby. A baby. It eclipsed any work emergency at the studio. Everything else—the water buffalo, the scissors lift—seemed petty in comparison. Everything else could wait.

She turned onto the Century City studio lot. The gate guard waved her through with a laconic gesture. She made her way around the blinding pale gray concrete labyrinth dotted with the occasional green oasis of palm-tree-studded gardens. Turning down a service alley, she parked in her designated spot next to Martin’s BMW. She’d never cared for the sports car. It was totally impractical, given the kind of gear they often toted around for the show. Now that he was about to become a father, he might get rid of the two-seater.

Heading for Martin’s trailer on foot, she passed a group of tourists on Segways, trolling for a glimpse of their favorite star. One eager woman paused her scooter and took Annie’s picture.

“Hey there,” the woman said, “aren’t you Jasmine Lockwood?”

“No,” said Annie with an almost apologetic smile.

“Oh, sorry. You look like her. I bet you get that a lot.”

Annie offered another slight smile and veered around the tour group. This wasn’t the first time someone pointed out her resemblance to the cooking diva. It was confusing to Annie. She didn’t look like anyone but herself.

Martin, the golden boy, liked to say she was his exotic lover, which always made Annie laugh. “I’m an all-American mutt from Vermont,” she’d say. “We can’t all have a pedigree.”

Would the baby look like her? Brown eyes and riotous black curls? Or like Martin, blond and regal?

Oh my God, she thought with a fresh surge of joy. A baby.

Power cords snaked across the alleyway leading to the studio. The trailers were lined up, workers with headsets and clipboards scurrying around. She could see the scissors lift looming above the work site. Fully extended, its orange steel folding supports formed a crisscross pattern, topped by the platform high overhead. Workmen in hard hats and electricians draped in coiled wire swarmed around it. Some guy was banging on the manual release valve with a black iron wrench.

She spotted Tiger, who hurried over to greet her. “It’s stuck in the up position.” Tiger looked like an anime character, with rainbow hair and a candy-colored romper. She also had a rare gift for doing several things simultaneously and well. Martin thought she was manic, but Annie appreciated her laser focus.

“Tell them to unstick it.” Annie kept walking. She could sense Tiger’s surprise; it wasn’t like Annie to breeze past a problem without attempting to solve it.

Martin’s cast trailer was the biggest on the lot. It was also the most tricked out, with a makeup station, dressing area, full bath and kitchen, and a work and lounge area. When they first fell in love, they’d often worked late together there, and ended up making love on the curved lounge and falling asleep in each other’s arms. The trailer was closed now, the blinds drawn against the burning heat. The AC unit chugged away.

Annie was eager to get inside where it was cool. She paused, straightening her skirt, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. There was a fleeting thought of lipstick. Shoot. She wanted to look nice when she told him she was going to be the mother of his child. Never mind, she told herself. Martin didn’t care about lipstick.

She quickly entered the code on the keypad and let herself in.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. Something soapy, floral. There was music playing, cheesy music. “Hanging by a Thread,” a song she used to sing at the top of her lungs when no one was around, because the right cheesy love song only made a person feel more in love.

A narrow thread of light came from a gap under the window shades. She pushed her sunglasses up on her head and let her eyes adjust. She started to call out to Martin, but her gaze was caught by something out of place.

A cell phone lay on the makeup station shelf. It wasn’t Martin’s phone, but Melissa’s. Annie recognized the blingy pink casing.

And then there was that moment. That sucker-punch feeling of knowing, but not really knowing. Not wanting to know.

Annie stopped breathing. She felt as if her heart had stopped beating, impossible though that was. Her mind whirled through options, thoughts darting like a mouse in a maze. She could back away right now, slip outside, rewind the moment, and . . .

And do what? What? Give them fair warning, so they could all go back to pretending this wasn’t happening?

An icy stab of anger propelled her forward. She went to the workstation area, separated from the entryway by a folding pocket wall. With a swipe of her arm, she shoved aside the screen to reveal the big L-shaped sofa.

He was straddling her, wearing nothing but the five-hundred-dollar cowboy boots.

“Hey!” he yelped, rearing back, a cowboy on a bucking bronc. “Oh, shit, Jesus Christ.” He scrambled to his feet, grabbing a fringed throw to cover his crotch.

Melissa gasped and clutched a couch cushion against her. “Annie! Oh my God—”

“Really?” Annie scarcely recognized the sound of her own voice. “I mean, really?”

“It’s not—”

“What it seems, Martin?” she bit out. “No. It’s exactly what it seems.” She backed away, her heart pounding, eager to get as far from him as possible.

“Annie, wait. Babe, let’s talk about this.”

She turned into a ghost right then and there. She could feel it. Every drop of color drained away until she was transparent.

Could he see that? Could he see through her, straight into her heart? Maybe she had been a ghost for a long time but hadn’t realized it until this moment.

The feeling of betrayal swept through her. She was bombarded by everything. Disbelief. Disappointment. Horror. Revulsion. It was like having an out-of-body experience. Her skin tingled. Literally tingled with some kind of electrical static.

“I’m leaving,” she said. She needed to go throw up somewhere.

“Can we please just talk about this?” Martin persisted.

“Do you actually think there’s something to talk about?”

She stared at the two of them a moment longer, perversely needing to imprint the scene on her brain. That was when the moment shifted.

This is how it ends, she thought.

Because it was one of those moments. A key moment. One that spins you around and points you in a new direction.

This is how it ends.

Martin and Melissa both began speaking at once. To Annie’s ears, it sounded like inarticulate babble. A strange blur pulsated at the edges of her vision. The blur was reddish in tone. The color of rage.

She backed away, needing to escape. Plunged her hand into her bag and grabbed her keys. They were on a Sugar Rush key chain in the shape of a maple leaf, the distinctive shape making it easy to find in a hurry.

Then she made a one-eighty turn toward the door and walked out into the alley. Her stride was purposeful. Gaze straight ahead. Chin held high.

That was probably the reason she tripped over the cable. The fall brought her to her knees, keys hitting the pavement with a jingle. She picked up the keys and whipped a glance around, praying no one had seen.

Three people hurried over—Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?

“I’m fine,” she said, dusting off the palms of her hands and her scraped knees. “Really, don’t worry.”

The phone in her shoulder bag went off like a buzz saw, even though it was set on silent mode. She marched past the construction area. Workers were still struggling with the lift, trying to open the hydraulic valve. She shouldn’t have let Martin talk her into the cheaper model.

“You have to turn it the other way,” she called out to the workers.

“Ma’am, this is a hard-hat area,” a guy said, waving her off.

“Leaving,” she said. “I’m just saying, you’re trying to crank the release valve the wrong way.”

“What’s that?”

“The valve. You’re turning it the wrong way.” What a strange conversation. When you discovered your husband banging some other woman, weren’t you supposed to call your mom, sobbing? Or your best friend?

“You know,” she said to the guy. “Lefty loosey, righty tighty.”

“Ma’am?”

“Counterclockwise,” she said, tracing her key chain in the air to show him the direction.

“Annie.” Martin burst out of his trailer and sprinted toward her. Cargo shorts, bare chest, cowboy boots. “Come back.”

Her hand tightened around the key chain, the edges of the maple leaf biting into her flesh.

The Segway tour group trolled past the end of the alley.

“It’s Martin Harlow,” someone called.

“We love your show, Martin,” called another girl in the Segway group. “We love you!”

“Ma’am, you mean like this?” The workman gave the valve a hard turn.

A metallic groan sounded from somewhere on high. And the entire structure came crashing down.

Also by Susan Wiggs

CONTEMPORARY NOVELS

Home Before Dark

The Ocean Between Us

Summer by the Sea

Table for Five

Lakeside Cottage

Just Breathe

The Goodbye Quilt

The Bella Vista Chronicles

The Apple Orchard

The Beekeeper’s Ball

The Lakeshore Chronicles

Summer at Willow Lake

The Winter Lodge

Dockside

Snowfall at Willow Lake

Fireside

Lakeshore Christmas

The Summer Hideaway

Marrying Daisy Bellamy

Return to Willow Lake

Candlelight Christmas

Starlight on Willow Lake

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

The Lightkeeper

The Drifter

The Mistress of Normandy

The Maiden of Ireland

The Tudor Rose Trilogy

At the King’s Command

The Maiden’s Hand

At the Queen’s Summons

Chicago Fire Trilogy

The Hostage

The Mistress

The Firebrand

Calhoun Chronicles

The Charm School

The Horsemaster’s Daughter

Halfway to Heaven

Enchanted Afternoon

A Summer Affair

About the Author

SUSAN WIGGS’s life is all about family, friends . . . and fiction. She lives at the water’s edge on an island in Puget Sound, and in good weather she commutes to her writers’ group in a 21-foot motorboat. She’s been featured in the national media, including NPR and USA Today, and is a popular speaker locally, nationally, internationally, and on the high seas.

From the very start, her writings have illuminated the everyday dramas of ordinary people. Her books celebrate the power of love, the timeless bonds of family, and the fascinating nuances of human nature. Today, she is an internationally bestselling, award-winning author, with millions of copies of her books in print in numerous countries and languages. According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with “refreshingly honest emotion,” and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is “one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.” Booklist characterizes her books as “real and true and unforgettable.”

Her novels have appeared in the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List, and have captured readers’ hearts around the globe. She is a three-time winner of the RITA Award, the highest honor for a work of romantic fiction. Her recent novel, The Apple Orchard, is currently being made into a film.

The author is a former teacher, a Harvard graduate, an avid hiker, an amateur photographer, a good skier, and terrible golfer, yet her favorite form of exercise is curling up with a good book.

Visit Susan Wiggs’s website at
www.susanwiggs.com

Social Media:

https://www.facebook.com/susanwiggs/
https://www.pinterest.com/beachwriter1/
https://twitter.com/susanwiggs
http://www.goodreads.com/SusanWiggs
https://www.instagram.com/susan_wiggs_/

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Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from Family Tree copyright © 2016 by Susan Wiggs.

THE KEY INGREDIENT. Copyright © 2016 by Susan Wiggs. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

EPub Edition JUNE 2016 ISBN: 9780062499066

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