Echoes of a Silent Song (Melodies and Memories #1)

Chapter One

BLAIR EMERSON couldn’t recall ever praying for patience.

She must have, though. Once upon a time she must’ve flung a plea heavenward for that particular virtue, because it took a special kind of patience to adjust to a sixth boss in six years.

It hadn’t always been this way. When Vic Nelson was choral director, top ratings at contest and packed-house concerts were the norm.

During his nearly four decades at the helm, the Peterson High choral program had been synonymous with excellence.

Blair counted herself fortunate to have had him as both her teacher in high school and her boss as an adult.

In fact, after receiving two degrees in piano, she’d turned down other job offers and eagerly returned to her alma mater to work with Vic for the last two years of his tenure.

And sad though she’d been when he retired, she’d been confident that a new director could fill his sizable shoes and maintain the program’s stellar reputation.

But since his retirement, directors had been in and out on an annual basis, with the predictable damage to enrollment, morale, and music making.

The latest hire hadn’t even lasted long enough to start the year.

He’d gotten a better offer two weeks ago and had done an abrupt about-face.

Vic had pulled a few strings and made the most of his connections, and now Blair had a new name to learn: Callum Knight.

Leaning into the crook of the choir room’s ebony Steinway grand, Blair pulled her phone from her pocket and resumed social-media stalking her newest colleague.

His degree in music education was standard, but dual master of music degrees in composition and choral conducting?

Those weren’t. Nor were the slick, high-quality website, the list of published works and commissions, or the baton-wielding professional headshot.

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Blair set the phone down on the piano.

That shiny website might as well have had “Teaching Is My Fallback Plan” scrolling across it in giant red letters.

The door burst open with its typical click-squeak-bang, and a haggard-looking figure stumbled in.

Espresso-colored hair, wild and wavy and so far past needing a trim that hedge clippers might be required to subdue it.

A square jaw and cleft chin shadowed in what must have been a week and a half of stubble.

Rumpled dress shirt, the top three buttons undone, and a blue-striped tie draped haphazardly around his neck.

An enormous travel mug clenched in a white-knuckled grip.

All of it a far cry from the dangerously handsome tuxedo-clad man whose headshot had just filled her phone screen.

Blair tilted her head and studied her new colleague. Was he hungover? No . . . that wasn’t the vibe. More like barely awake.

At just past noon.

On the first day of staff meetings.

Way to make a first impression.

“Morning,” he said, more grunt than greeting.

“Afternoon,” Blair replied with a pointed glance at the digital clock hanging above the whiteboard. “You’ve already missed half a day’s worth of meetings.”

The new director set his travel mug on a table near the board. “If they were anything like every other meeting in the world, I missed nothing of consequence. But if I did miss anything, you seem like the type who took good enough notes to catch me up.”

Blair stiffened. She had taken notes. She always took notes. How this just-rolled-out-of-bed champion of condescension could possibly know that, though, was anyone’s guess.

“Hmmph.” She jammed her phone back into her pocket.

He finished buttoning his shirt, then applied a manufactured smile to stubble-shrouded lips and extended his right hand. “Callum Knight. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Blair Emerson.” She returned his handshake but not his pleasantry.

The evaluation his piercing green eyes gave her was thorough and penetrating but unreadable beyond that. Oh well. She’d learn to read his expressions well enough in time. It was part of her job, after all.

“Ah, yes. The accompanist.”

“Collaborative pianist” came her automatic reply.

Normally Blair found the two terms interchangeable and had no preference.

But the latter, though more verbally unwieldy, carried the weight of an equal musical partnership, something she suspected she’d have to fight to receive from this arrogant creature.

“Of course. Apologies.” His tone conveyed much—mild exasperation, a hint of amusement, perhaps even curt dismissal—but not a hint of apology. “It’s all the same, really. I wave my arms, you follow me, and it’ll all be peaches and sunshine.”

Blair drew herself to her full, hopefully intimidating height. “You don’t need to tell me my responsibilities, Mr. Knight. Especially since I’m confident I have considerably more experience working with high schoolers than you do.”

Straightening his still-untied tie, he gave a lopsided smirk. “So you’ve researched me, then.”

“Of course I have. And I certainly hope you paid attention during your ed degree, because I am not in the mood to handhold. I’m proud of this program and ready to see it return to its former glory, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.”

“Well, currently,” he drawled, weaving his tie into a quick knot, “that involves putting up with me for this school year and then giving that rousing pep talk to my replacement.”

Wow. So it had come to this. Directors who announced their days were numbered before the students even darkened the doors.

Her hands found her hips. “You’re not even giving this a chance. Wonderful.”

“Look, let’s be up-front with each other.

” He tightened his tie. “Composition is my passion. It was enough to keep a roof over my head for a few blessed years, but now, for a variety of reasons too long and boring to explain, I find myself in need of a steady paycheck. Since I have no dependents and since cost of living here is low, this year’s salary should be enough to keep me afloat until . . . well, until I . . .”

For the first time, Callum faltered. Gave some indication that his blustering, blowhard act was, in fact, just that. An act.

“Until you . . .” She made a keep-going gesture, her voice intentionally crisp.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Until I’ve finished the year. With any luck at all, then I can return to composing on the East Coast, and you can find someone more suitable for”—he took in the choral room, then indicated its space with a wave of his hand—“this.”

“Fine. But right now you have a job to do. One at which—up until this point, anyway—you’ve failed miserably. We’re due in the auditorium for another meeting in five minutes. I expect to see you there.”

Without waiting for a reply, she brushed past Callum and banged through the door.

Since Vic’s departure, she’d learned to temper her natural optimism.

But even her most tamped-down dreams were a moon shot compared to the disaster unfolding before her.

A summer’s worth of prayers for a director who’d invest, who’d care, who’d stay, seemed to have been answered with a resounding no.

Okay then, God. Guess I’ll just muddle through as best I can with this . . . special, special human being you’ve brought into my life and start praying for lucky number seven to be the one to repair the damage.

And in the meantime . . . I could really use some patience.

The coffee at the bottom of Callum Knight’s travel mug was stone-cold.

So much for the lofty promises from the mug’s manufacturer to keep it tongue-searing hot through the longest of days.

Well, despite clocking in past noon, this had indeed been the longest of days thanks to an afternoon of lame icebreaker games with a passel of overly enthusiastic new coworkers.

Best bite the bullet and buy a new mug before next week, then. Because next week, for the first time in almost a decade, he’d have to clock in obscenely early and be responsible for teenagers seven hours a day.

God help them. God help them all.

With great reluctance, he switched on the obnoxious fluorescent light in his new office, a concrete reminder of his unpleasant new reality.

His previous time in the trenches of the educational system was a distant, hazy memory after several years of successful full-time composing and the creation of his own hand-selected professional choir.

But then came the pandemic, and among the casualties had been that choir, his fiancée, and his creative muse.

A stack of unfulfilled commissions and missed deadlines had caught up with him, and now—unthinkably—here he stood in a high school choir office, the dull ache at the base of his skull a physical manifestation of having fallen back into his fallback plan.

The office was nothing to write home about.

Not that he had much of a home to write to, of course.

Tiny. Dimly lit. Squeaky, fake-leather chair with a rip in the back—the result of some sophomoric shenanigan, no doubt.

A moderately sized coffee-stained desk with a strip of Formica dangling from the front.

A few framed photo collages of past choirs mugging for the camera in front of the Washington Monument and the Empire State Building.

The upright piano near the door with chipped keys and a cluster of circular stains on top, where a parade of idiots—or perhaps the same overly consistent idiot—had stashed their drinks.

Everything was covered in a layer of dust, with only past glories to cling to.

He could relate.

Callum set his mug on the desk with a heavy thunk and dropped into the office chair, which gave an unholy shriek at being disturbed.

Gritting his teeth, he tried and failed to restick the strip of Formica, then gave up and yanked it off, revealing the cheap particle board beneath.

With a sigh, he tossed the strip into the trash can beside his desk.

A fitting metaphor for the turn his career, his life, had taken.

At least he had a plan to fall back on. That was his mother’s attempt at forcing him to find the silver lining.

“You’re keeping a roof over your head, Callum,” she’d said when he’d reluctantly told her the news.

“You’re staying connected with the choral world.

Who knows? Maybe those kids will give you the inspiration you need to get back to composing. Remember, God’s in control.”

God. Control. Two words that always rankled when appearing together. If God were truly in control, then why did Callum’s life feel like utter chaos?

However, his mother was right on one point. This job would keep him financially afloat. He should be grateful. No way would he even be here if not for his friend and mentor, Vic Nelson, who’d clued him in to the last-minute opening and—he suspected—gone to bat for him with administration.

The buzz of his phone against the desk set his teeth on edge, but his ire lessened with a glance at the screen. A text from Vic himself.

Settling in?

Ha. That was one way to put it.

Callum tapped out a reply. As much as can be, yes. Icebreaker games today. This he punctuated with a sarcastic confetti-horn emoji.

Icebreaker games? Then you’ve doubtless met your right-hand woman, Blair.

His jaw tightened. That uptight redhead certainly hadn’t seemed impressed with him on first meeting. Though she’d refrained from judging him out loud, he’d heard her just as clearly as if she had. One glance into those golden-brown eyes had been enough. She’d thought he was hungover.

If only.

Instead he’d done what he did every night for the past two years: tinker at his piano into the wee hours, trying and failing and trying again and failing again and failing and failing and failing some more before falling asleep to late-night sports talk shows on the cheap hand-me-down futon his younger sister had given him.

Hungover would be a dream compared to his current misery.

I have, was all he typed in reply.

And how’d that go?

Fine.

Liar. I can hear it in your voice.

Callum frowned.

But this is a text.

I stand by my statement.

Callum sat with the phone in his hands, leg bouncing up and down beneath the dilapidated desk. Before long, another text vibrated its arrival.

A bit of advice, if I may? Blair is the key to winning over those kids.

The kids. Gah. He’d been trying not to think about the kids.

Four choirs’ worth. Four. Plus a music theory class, a piano class, and something called Extended Learning Time.

Winning them over was the last thing on his agenda.

He didn’t care about winning them over. He cared only about recapturing his muse, so he could resign this job as quickly as he’d taken it, return to Boston, and get his life back.

Irritation surging, he started to type a reply to that effect, but the little animated ellipsis stopped him. Another incoming text from Vic.

I’m under no illusion that this job is permanent for you. But this school year will be what you make it, Callum.

Callum leaned back in the chair and studied the little gray speech bubble.

Based on what he’d seen today, this year would land somewhere between Moderately Terrible and Complete Dumpster Fire.

Thanks to his prickly pianist, his puppylike colleagues, and this tiny, dusty office, Actually Good was out of the question.

But he could grit his teeth and do what he could to move the needle as close to Moderately Terrible as he could.

He texted back, the letters appearing slowly beneath his thumbs.

I’ll do my best.

That was all anyone—including himself—could ask.