fled through the open door and didn’t stop until she was all the way across the street.
Cole watched her disappear through the Sentinel office doorway. “Don’t know what got into her,” he murmured.
“Maybe she’s hungry,” Ellie offered with a laugh.
“Nah, she just finished breakfast.”
Ellie nodded. She was as tall as he was, with a slim figure and a graceful way of moving. He thought he recognized her from her photo in the Sentinel.
“Mrs. Johnson, isn’t it?”
“Ellie.”
Cole nodded. “What can I do for you today, Ellie?”
She smiled. “It’s about what I can do for you, Mr. Sanders.”
Cole waited while her smile widened. “Uh, what might that be? You aren’t a typesetter, are you?”
Behind him, Noralee gave a squeak of outrage.
“Heaven’s no. I’m a music teacher. I came about tonight.”
“Tonight? What about tonight?”
“Why, the tryouts for the choir,” she explained. “At the church.”
“Sorry, I’m not a churchgoing man.” He hadn’t set foot in a church since that awful day back in Kansas when he buried Maryann.
“Oh, it’s not a church choir,” she said quickly. “It’s the new community chorus that I am directing. We’re doing a Christmas benefit for the new music school.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Do you like music? Singing, I mean?”
“I do. But not in church.”
“Whyever not? What have you got against churches?”
“I...” Cole faltered. He could never explain how he felt, that God had abandoned him to black despair when Maryann had died. He shook his head.
“Do come,” she urged. “A little religion would do any newspaper editor good. Seven o’clock.”
She was gone before he could say yea or nay. Mostly he thought nay. A little religion would never in a thousand years cure what ailed him.
But then he thought of all the town news he might glean at choir rehearsals, and he changed his mind.
Cole hated churches. He’d been married in one and a year later he’d sat through Maryann’s funeral and felt his heart turn to stone. Ever since then he’d steered clear of religious establishments.
To his surprise, the Smoke River Community Church meeting hall wasn’t oppressive. The walls were painted a soft cream color, accented by dark wooden beams. Oak, he thought. Nice.
About two dozen townspeople sat on benches around the perimeter, waiting for the tryouts to begin. Including, he discovered with a jolt of pleasure, Jessamine Lassiter.
Tryouts, he discovered, involved singing alone, and Cole immediately felt uncomfortable about that. Trapped would be a better word. Maybe he should give up the idea. He had started to rise when the choir director, Ellie Johnson, impeccably dressed in a black skirt and a soft pink shirtwaist, clapped her hands and everyone sat up straighter.
“Let’s start with the women’s voices.”
The women sang selections from church hymns for their tryouts. Ellie selected four altos and three sopranos that blended with each other. One of the sopranos was Jessamine, who had spent all evening studiously ignoring him.
The tenors tried out next. The director chose five, including Whitey Poletti, who had a whiskey-smooth tone and an extraordinarily high range. Whitey had launched into “Santa Lucia,” but got no further than the first stanza before Ellie smiled and nodded at him.
By the time the director got around to the baritones, Cole was ready to bolt. He couldn’t sing like Whitey. He had no musical training, never sang in a church or any other choir and he hated the thought of doing it in public.
He looked for the exit, but just then Ellie pinned him with an expectant look.
He maneuvered to sing last, praying that those already chosen, including Jessamine, would go on home.
No such luck.
“Cole Sanders? Your turn.”
Cole stood up, wishing a trapdoor would open beneath him. The director smiled encouragingly. “What would you like to sing, Mr. Sanders?”
He felt Jessamine’s cool green-gray eyes on him, and his throat closed up tight. The director waited.
“Uh, could I do this outside? Just the two of us?”
She shook her head, and the onlookers began to whisper among themselves. Shoot sake! This wasn’t any worse than facing down a rabid mob of pro-slavery demonstrators back in Kansas. He drew in a deep breath.
Jessamine waited. She’d bet the country bumpkin from Kansas couldn’t sing a note. Then he opened his mouth and started in.
“‘Oh, my darling, Oh, my darling, Oh, my darling, Clementine...’”
Suddenly the room was so quiet she could have heard a hatpin hit the floor. She sat straight as a ramrod and stared at him.
“You are lost and gone forever...”
She’d never heard a more beautiful male voice. Rich and full, like a hot mince pie warm from the oven. The director stopped him after “dreadful sorry, Clementine.”
“Mr. Sanders, do you read music?”
Aha! Jess would bet a million dollars in gold that he couldn’t. That was why he’d chosen a simple folk song for his audition, and besides that, his voice was entirely untrained.
“Yeah, some,” he said. “My momma taught me when I learned to play the guitar.”
“Then we would be honored to have you in our community choir. We’ll be performing selections from Handel’s Messiah at Christmas. Are you familiar with this work?”
Cole shook his head.
“In addition to the choral numbers, there is also a mixed quartet of voices included—soprano, alto, tenor, baritone. Perhaps you would consider—?”
“Just four voices singing by themselves? ’Fraid not, ma’am. I—”
The director stepped up close to him. “Please, Mr. Sanders. I am short one good baritone voice.”
Jessamine clenched her fingers together in her lap. Say no, she urged. Ellie had chosen her to be the soprano singer in the quartet. The last thing she wanted was to stand next to Cole Sanders and sing. The very last thing. The thought made her cold and then hot all over.
She caught Cole’s eye and subtly shook her head.
He gave her a long, unreadable look. “I’ll do it,” he announced.
Jess’s heart contracted. She sat numb with anxiety while Ellie selected two basses, rancher Peter Jensen and Ike Bruhn, who owned the sawmill.
“That will be all for tonight,” Ellie announced. “Rehearsals will start next Tuesday when Winifred Dougherty’s grand piano arrives from St. Louis. Until then, pick up a score and look it over.” She gestured to a pile of music on one of the benches.
“And for the quartet...” She glanced meaningfully at Cole and then Jessamine. “Please start learning your parts. We will rehearse separately, on Thursday evenings.”
Jess pressed her lips together. It wasn’t enough to have Cole Sanders in her hair every day of the week, but