Free Love Will Find a Way by Barbara Freethy

toward the bathroom.
    "I take it that's your handiwork," she said, looking at the plane because it was easier than looking at Dylan.
    "Yes."
    "Well, you made him feel better." She picked up the plane, giving it a thoughtful look. "This looks like more than the average paper airplane. Are you some sort of an expert?"
    "You could say that."
    She heard the note of humor in his voice and it drew her gaze back to his. This time his smile was wry.
    "I pretty much majored in paper-airplane design. I did my prep work in middle school and high school and got my advanced degree in college. I must admit it's been a while. I wasn't sure I remembered how until my fingers took over." He shook his head as if confused by something. "I can't believe Gary never showed Wesley how to make an airplane. When we were kids, Gary used to name them like they were real jets."
    "Really?" It was odd, the little things she'd been learning about her husband since his death. But a secret penchant for paper airplanes was the least of her worries. "What were some of the names?"
    "Rudy the Rocket, Supersonic Sam and a series of Greek names when we spent a semester studying Greek mythology -- like Zeus, Odysseus and Apollo."
    "He never mentioned it."
    "We must have made a thousand our senior year in high school," Dylan said. "And even after. Don't you remember that party? The luau we went to with Gary's fraternity brothers before you got married. Where was that at?"
    "A Polynesian restaurant in Sausalito," she murmured.
    "Yes. Trader Something."
    "And Gary put on the grass skirt and did the hula," she said, floating back to that day. She could still see Gary trying to dance like a hula girl, the skirt falling off his hips as he mimicked the other dancers' movements. The entire room had been in hysterics. And Dylan ... She looked at him with a grin. "You made a paper airplane out of the menu and tried to nail Gary in the stomach."
    "I got him, too, on the third try. Remember?"
    "I remember." And as she gazed into his eyes, she also remembered other times. The weeks the three of them had spent together before her wedding had been some of the happiest of her life, until she and Dylan had ruined their friendship forever. She'd attempted to push those memories aside, to concentrate on her present and her future, and she'd been successful -- until now.
    "Those were good times," Dylan said, daring her to disagree, but she couldn't. "We were young. We had our lives in front of us."
    "They were good times. I remember how serious and intense you were. And ambitious, too. Your dreams weren't big; they were huge."
    "I guess it's a good thing I got into building skyscrapers."
    "I always knew you would."
    "Gary was successful, too, despite his happy-go-lucky attitude."
    "He loved his work, loved the dreaming part. That's what he used to call it." She laughed at the memory. "I used to call it the lying-on-the-backyard-hammock-and-taking-an-afternoon-nap part. But Gary insisted that dreaming time was essential to his job."
    "He could always talk his way into the right answer."
    "Yes, he was very good at talking."
    "And so were you," Dylan reminded her. "We had some great conversations, even though you were just a kid."
    "I was nineteen."
    "Just a kid," he repeated.
    She shrugged. "You're right. I wasn't even old enough to have champagne at my own wedding."
    "But you knew what you wanted."
    "I did," she agreed. "Thanks, Dylan."
    "For what?"
    "For making Wesley a paper airplane, for taking his mind off things for a few minutes, for reminding me of the good times." She started as Wesley's loud voice called up the stairs that dinner was ready and they better come soon or Grandma was feeding it to the dogs.
    "That sounds serious," Dylan said.
    "Definitely. Around here, nobody messes with dinner, especially when my grandmother is cooking." She walked toward the door. "By the way, a word to the wise. If my grandfather offers you a taste of his homemade apple wine, say