If I’d known he was going to return over lunch, I could have treated him to one of his favourites from the deli – a cream horn.

I closed the office door behind me, waggling the brown paper bag embossed with the deli logo. Inside, I was glowing from the kind praise from Mrs Cooke. I bounced across the newsroom. “The hunter-gatherer has returned.”

I turned to Frances and my smile withered. She was sitting behind her desk, dabbing at her wet eyes with a tissue.

The usually relaxed atmosphere in our little newsroom was edgy; unidentifiable.

I looked at Doug and then back to Frances. An uneasy feeling gripped my stomach. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Doug shuffled from foot to foot, avoiding eye contact with me. “Switch on the office voicemail, would you please Leonie? We need to talk.”

Chapter Two

My stomach plummeted to the floor.

I felt as though I had been punched in the chest. “You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”

Frances dragged her swivel chair round to sit beside me, her suit rumpled and her eyes stinging with more tears.

“I wish I were,” managed Doug.

“But closing the paper…”

Doug’s words carried more than a hint of sarcasm. “Not closing. Amalgamating.”

I couldn’t process this. The Clarity Newspaper Group had decided to amalgamate The Silver Ness News with one of our sister titles, The Drummond Post. Drummond was the neighbouring town to Silver Ness and a friendly rivalry had existed between the two ever since I could remember.

I rocked backwards and forwards in my chair, a rising panic clawing at me. I had been right to be concerned when Doug was summoned to Head Office like that. It wasn’t an urgent finance meeting. It was management lobbing a filthy great bomb into our lives.

Frances sniffed into her hankie.

I could guess what Doug was about to say, but I asked anyway. Part of me didn’t want to know. “But there must be something we can do,” I persisted, my voice dripping with desperation. “How about we try and modernise the paper a bit? Nothing radical, but just give it a bit of an update?”

“Leonie…” started Doug, looking defeated.

“I had been thinking about it before,” I carried on, fighting to sound positive. “We could have a few more competitions and get some of the local businesses on board. That could boost the paper’s revenue.”

Frances sniffed louder and didn’t say anything.

“Or we could have a feature such as the Silver Ness Reader of The Week. Highlight a local who’s done a lot for the community…” My voice tailed off at Doug’s distinct lack of enthusiasm for my ideas.