He turned onto that lane, followed it-and ended up on a winding track no wider than the Range Rover.

He felt like a steer on its way to the slaughterhouse-funneled into a chute with no way out.

And there was an apt metaphor for you, he thought grimly.

The lane twisted again, the hedgerows loomed. The windshield wipers swept back and forth, condensation rose. Gabe muttered under his breath.

Where were the wide-open spaces when you needed them?

“Damn!” He rounded the next blind curve and found himself coming straight up the rear tire of an antiquated bicycle that wobbled along ahead of him.

He swerved. There was no time to hit the brakes. The rider swerved at the same time-fortunately in the opposite direction.

Gabe breathed again as he passed, leaving the bicyclist, who appeared to be an elderly woman swaddled in a faded red sweater over more clothes than were necessary to get through a Montana winter, staring after him, doubtless unnerved, but fortunately unscathed.

It wouldn’t have done to have flattened a local.

“I thought you intended to save the Gazette, not make headlines in it,” he could well imagine Earl saying sarcastically.

Earl had openly scoffed when Gabe had proposed to take care of things and be back in a week.

“A week? You think you’re going to turn ten years worth of sliding sales, bad management and terrible writing around in a week?”

“Well, two, then,” Gabe had muttered. How the hell was he supposed to know? He’d never saved a newspaper before. He barely even read them-beyond checking the price of steers and maybe glancing at the sports page.

“Two months,” Earl had said loftily. “If you’re clever.”