I casually glanced down at my hand, but instead of a wedding ring and an engagement ring, there was only the narrow gold band.

"Randy!" I yelped. "My engagement ring is gone."

It was Valentine's Day, and my husband, Randy, and I were on our way from my niece's wedding, which had taken place in one town, to the reception, which was being held in another city about fifteen miles away.

If there hadn't been other cars behind us, I think my husband might have been tempted to slam on the brakes.

Of course, one of the things I have always admired about Randy is his ability to remain unruffled during a crisis. Like that time one winter when the landlord had arranged for contractors to build a sloped roof over the flat roof of a house we were renting, and the next thing you know, the snow trapped between the two roofs started melting, and then gallons of water began dripping into the house and THEN the ceiling caved in?

Or that summer when I had agreed to help teach a one-week summer school course at the university for high school students and had come down with a terrible case of the stomach flu on Monday, and Randy had cheerfully agreed to take my place. All week he divided his time between teaching the class and then rushing Home to see if I needed anything?

Or the Thanksgiving right after my father had died and we were hauling Home some of my parents' furniture-all that I had left in the world of both of them because my mother had died seven years earlier-and it had started to rain part of the way through our 250-mile journey. Randy stopped the pick-up truck we had borrowed from a friend to cut his shoelaces into pieces so he could tie the tarp down better to keep the furniture dry?

In each of those instances, my husband had been an unshakeable source of strength who came to my rescue.

And he didn't disappointment me this time.

"Where did you have the ring last?" Randy asked as he calmly kept driving.

I thought back over the hectic events of the day -

Let's see?just before we left the church, I was busy buttoning up my niece's train?and before that I was occupied with watching the ceremony and trying not to cry?and before that I had been busy pinning on corsages and boutonnieres while the photographer impatiently breathed down my neck, never mind that he was late getting to the church?

When HAD I last noticed I was wearing the blue topaz ring with the delicate gold swirl around the stone?

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