Free Taking a Chance on Love by Mary Razzell Page A

Sometimes he seemed to like me. Like now.
    Twenty-five was old to be single all right, but I couldn’t help out Anna. “I’m really sorry,” I said to her, “but I’ve picked up another job, a
Vancouver Sun
paper route. The
Tymac
doesn’t bring the papers from Horseshoe Bay until around seven, and then I have to deliver them. That will make it too late for me to go to the dance.”
    â€œBruce, you can work something out,” Anna said over her shoulder, as she left the kitchen.
    â€œWhy are you working so hard?” Bruce said. “You’re here twice a day. And now you have a paper route, too? How much money can you make at that?”
    â€œThirty cents for every dollar paper I sell. I’ve got twenty-four customers taking the weekend edition. It works out to $7.20 a week. I’ve got to work if I want to stay in school. My mother wants me to quit. She says I’m only going to get married anyway and have children. She thinks that only boys need an education. They have to support a wife and family.”
    â€œAnd? What do you think?”
    â€œI know I don’t want to end up married with a bunch of children and stuck here in the boonies. I want out.” I took a bowl of eggs from the fridge to hard-boil for the potato salad.
    â€œWhat do you want to do when you’re ‘out’?”
    â€œI’d really like to go to university. It would mean working for a year first to earn enough to pay for tuition, room and board.”
    â€œHave you looked into scholarships for high school students who want to go on to university?” Bruce said.
    â€œI asked my high school teacher, but all the scholarships are for boys. ‘Boys only.’ That’s right. It’s what my mother says, too. Boys need the education. It makes me furious.”
    â€œMeg, a girl like you has a future ahead of her. You can do anything you want if you make your mind up to it.”
    â€œI don’t know about that.”
    â€œI believe in you, Meg,” he said. He took my hand.
    The clock ticked loudly in the room, even though, to me, time seemed to have stopped. After a moment, Bruce dropped my hand, and my heartbeat returned to normal.
    â€œI’ll tell you what is going to happen tonight,” he said. “I’ll help you deliver your papers, and we’ll go to the dance together. I can’t stand by and see a kid like you work all the time, without having some fun. We’ll stay at the dance for an hour, and then I’ll drive you home. You’re working tomorrow, and you need to get your sleep.”
    Kid. Kid. Kid. “No, thanks.”
    â€œMeg, yes,” he said. “We’ll do it my way.”
    â€œI appreciate the thought, but I don’t like it when you boss me around. And I’m not a child.”
    He laughed, and I realized it was the first time I’d heard him laugh. I couldn’t help but laugh back.
    â€œI don’t think of you as a child,” he said. “Not at all. You are a very special young woman. For now, no more arguing.”
    The guest house owned a 1940 Ford pickup truck, and Bruce drove it down to the foot of the wharf to wait for the
Tymac
. The speedboat was on time, and as soon as the bundle of newspapers was thrown onto the float, I grabbed it by the rope binding the papers, ran up the ramp to the wharf and threw it into the back of the truck. Hopping in the back beside them, I began to fold the papers for delivery.
    Bruce and I soon worked out a system. I’d rap on the roof of the cab when we came to a customer’s house, take a paper and run up the many, many stairs to deliver it at the front door. Our village, which was terraced, was built on the narrow strip of land that lay between the mountains and the ocean. In the winter, the locals got their paper through the mail, but the summer people wanted the latest paper, not one three days old. And they wanted it right on their