We had driven down the curving ribbon of concrete to the outskirts of Valleydale before she said anything. Then she said simply, “Donald, I could love you forever for that.”
“What?”
“Just everything about it.”
I laughed. “I didn’t make the view,” I said.
“No,” she said, “and there’s a lot of other things you didn’t try to make. Gosh, Donald, you’re a nice kid.”
“What,” I asked, “is all this leading up to?”
“Nothing. I just wanted you to know. It wouldn’t have been the same with anyone else. Other men I know would have talked too much, or pawed too much, or made me fight. I just relaxed with you and felt that you were a part of the scenery, and it was all a part of me.”
“In other words, I’m something of a non-combatant. Is that it?”
“Donald, stop it! You know better than that.”
“I know that a man is supposed to consider it a dubious compliment when a girl says she feels perfectly safe with him.”