After all, they had spent the entire day working and getting dirty; they needed to cleanse themselves. The mood was being set with the sensual sound of bath water running, soft love music in the background, a bottle of red wine, a single wine glass to drink from and chocolate on a tray within reach. The two lovers were getting ready for their first bubble bath together. The room was dark except for the lighted candles lining the tub that gave off a soft glow, the scent of lavender from bath oils filled the room, white fluffy bubbles covered the water and their presence completed the romantic scene. He removed his clothes and slide into the bath first, leaning his back against the up sloping part of the tub with all but his shoulders and head hidden beneath the bubbles floating on top of the water. Debra undressed next to the tub. Her clothes fell to the floor. She put one foot in the water to test it. The water was teetering on hot just like she was feeling. It was the perfect temperature, so she placed the other foot in. Debra stood there facing him. He spread his legs so she could sit between them. Taking her in as she turned around and lower herself inch by inch into the water. Only their heads were visible as she leaned back and felt his body on hers. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She felt so relaxed, so peaceful. It seemed like the perfect place to find out more about the ring. She turned her head and gave him a grin and said, “So why didn't you give the ring back to my mother. You know I never believed your story that you had lost it.” “I thought I had lost it. Really!” he said with a begging voice. Giving him a disbelieving look she said, “and...” “After my dad told me your mom had called I looked everywhere for your ring. I could not find it, I didn’t know where else to look so I told my dad I couldn’t find it.”

“So how it did end up on a nylon string around your neck with your Dad’s wedding ring?”

“For years I didn't think about ‘the ring’. You were gone. It was gone and my life had moved on. Then in 2006 when I was visiting a lifelong friend with my son Niclas in Michigan something magical happened. I think I told you that Niclas loved to look through my old stuff for treasures. For him, it was a wonderful surprise that some of my personal belongings were in Michigan because he had new place to search. So it wasn’t long before he began looking through my boxes hunting for some hidden gem.”

She interrupted, “Why do you have your stuff stored in different places?”

“Redundancy.”

“What? Redundancy? Are you crazy?”

“Think about it. What if all your personal belongings are stored in one place and there is a fire or a theft? I don’t lose everything if they are stored in different locations.” “What are you talking about? Are you that important that you have to worry about such things? I don’t think so, I want the truth.” With a slight pause to think before he said, “I'm a gypsy in disguise. Since I’ve never really settled down, I like to travel and I usually don’t stay in any one place for an extended period of time, I needed a place to store my personal belongings. So I'm lucky enough to have a friend who lets me store my important items at his house.”

She was staring at him with skepticism and said, “Really, what does that have to do with my ring?”

He ignored her comment and continued, “Niclas was having fun going through my stuff and as he came across items that interested him he would ask me, “What is this? Where did it come from? Is all this stuff yours?” This ring really sparked his interest. He jumped up and said, ‘Look at this papa.’ Niclas showed me 'The Ring' and said, ‘Is this Grandpa's?’ He handed me the ring to look at and I was shocked. I hadn't seen ‘The Ring’ in over twenty years.”

He paused for long moment. Niclas’s Grandpa Morgan had died four months before he was born. Randy had told him many stories about Grandpa Morgan. The ones Niclas liked the most were about his Grandpa being a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot in WWII. Grandpa Morgan had been stationed in the South Pacific, on the USS Randolph aircraft carrier. He was a fighter pilot. His plane was a single prop Grumman F6F Hellcat with one 20 mm M2 cannon in each of the inboard gun bays capable of 220 rounds per gun, along with two pairs of 12.7 mm machine guns capable of 400 rounds per gun. Niclas would always ask Randy to tell him about the Kamikaze mission by Japanese pilot that severely damaged the USS Randolph while Grandpa was there. Because Niclas was so interested in his Grandpa’s plane Randy had taken him to the Boeing flight museum to see a real Grumman F6F Hellcat and there were pictures of the USS Randolph right after the Kamikaze mission. All of these heroic stories heightened his Grandpa’s stature. Niclas wanted one of Grandpa’s rings on necklace to wear, just like his Papa always wore Grandpa’s gold wedding ring on a necklace.

Randy continued, “Once again Niclas said “Is this Grandpa’s ring?” I was dismayed to be seeing it again I told him it was a gift from an old friend. Feeling it in my hands, it seemed so familiar, the wording, the ridges, the blue gem stone and your initials engraved inside the band. I looked at the ring for a few minutes thinking about its history and then I asked him to put it back where he had found it. I walked out of the room without saying another word about 'The Ring'.” “You saw 'The Ring' and you did nothing?” she asked in amazement.

“I was shocked, surprised and not sure what I should do. At first I thought I should ignore that he found it but I couldn’t get it out of my mind.”

“When did you decide to do something about it?” she asked in demanding voice. “I thought about it for a day or two then I came to the conclusion that you might want 'The Ring'. After all, it had been over twenty years since the ring had even seen the light of day.”

“Is that when did you start trying to find me to tell me about the ring?” she asked. “It must have been the summer of 2006. Unfortunately I really didn't put much effort into it. I found your brother online and sent him a message asking if he was your brother and to let you know I was searching for you. I never heard back from you or your brother so I gave up.”

“You gave up! Why?” she asked in an exasperated voice. “What else did you want me to do? Besides, you finally heard from your brother or we wouldn’t be together right now.”

“I never heard from my brother.”

“What! He never told you.”

“No, I was getting married in July 2006 and he thought telling me might have some effect on my decision.” “Really? Would you have said, ‘I do’ if you had known I was searching for you?” he asked.. “Who knows? You always seemed to occupy my thoughts in one way or another,” she said. He smiled with the thought he had always meant so much to her. “I still can't believe he didn't tell you. Did you yell at him for not telling you?”

“I should have but...”

“Then how did you find out I was looking for you?”

“He mentioned it to my sister in 2008.”

“And?”

“She called me and told me that you had been looking for me in 2006.”

“At least you finally found out I was searching for you.” She smiled, and gave him a kiss. “Yes I did. I was so very happy to hear you were looking for me.” “Me too, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are today,” he said as he placed a piece of deep dark chocolate on her tongue. He watched her suck on the chocolate as he enjoyed some George Duboeuf French Beaujolais wine. He held the glass to her mouth and she drank freely as they both felt the magic between them. He buried his forehead into the top of her head, feeling the individual strands of her hair on his face. It was as if pure love was flowing from the top of her head into his. He couldn't describe the feeling in a way that would make sense to anyone. But he felt it. He knew if he could bottle this feeling everyone would buy it. His breathing slowed and his body relaxed as she melted inside of him. He whispered, “I love you” into her ear.

She looked back over her shoulder and acknowledged the same feeling. She thought about her Randy. What did she really know about him? She had so many questions and so few answers. Normally he didn't want to talk about himself but maybe this was the time to talk. He was in such a peaceful state so she decided take the plunge and asked him some questions. They might discover and remember things about each other that time and fate had caused them to miss.

She said, “I remember when we met as if it was yesterday. It was the spring of 1982.”

“We met in the spring? Are you sure? I thought it was the fall or maybe even later.”

“Yes, I am sure.” She said. “Woman don’t forget important dates and times like men.” Debra learned that Randy, although non-committal, would keep sentimental things in a special boxes. Thinking she would have box of her own, she soon discovered otherwise. The letters, pictures, and other sentimental things he received from her were in a shared a box. This box also contained things from another girl. She inquired about this girl, and he told her it was a High School sweet heart that she was sharing a box with. Debra wanted to know more about her than just “his High school girlfriend,” so he elaborated about this relationship. “We were a pretty wild couple, staying out till all hours of the night and doing some questionable things. I used to climb up the lattice on the front of her house, onto the patio roof where her brother’s bedroom window was located. I would go in this window, through his bedroom into her bedroom. Then I would sneak out later that night.”

“What if you had got caught? Not to mention, didn’t you have a curfew? I know I did.”

“Getting caught was risk reward calculation and in this case the risk was worth it. My dad was big advocate of risk analysis, he would say ‘what I don’t know won’t hurt you, but what I do know may hurt you’. Luckily I didn’t get caught much. And yes, I had curfew, but I snuck into my girlfriend’s house on weekends.”

“My curfew was 10 pm on weekdays and 12 pm on weekends. If I was late there was a high price to be paid. Being grounded, no phone, no car, to name a few. What was your curfew?”

“I don’t recall specific time restrictions. But I do remember coming in around 02:00 am on a school night and my father said, “We aren't going to make a habit of this are we?”

“I think all these antics with your high school girlfriend tainted you about woman for the rest of your life.”

“Well, I don't know about that. We seem to be doing all right,” he said with a big grin on his face. ”Yes, we are but…,” She said, “I don’t like the thought of you with another woman. Call it ‘Jealousy’, call it whatever you want. I just don’t like it.”

“That was long ago. We are here now. In each other’s arms. Kiss me,” he said with a reassuring smile. She thought, ‘he is dismissing me. But he is right. I’m here with him now. He ate food off my body today and He is mine.’ Debra was starting to wish she hadn't asked about his past. She felt like Pandora. All the evils of his past were locked away in a box but Debra had an insatiable curiosity. Debra, like Pandora had opened the box and let everything escape and now she would have to come to terms with it.

Then Debra blurted out, “I once altered my driver’s license to go to a concert without my mother’s permission. My friend helped me to paste the numbers from the phone book over the numbers on license. But in the end, my mother came into my room asking to see my driver’s license for some reason. She seemed to have psychic power when it came to those types of things. It was clear I had altered it so within twenty four hours I was caught red handed. Needless to say my criminal activity was thwarted and I couldn't go to the concert. I was never very good at lying or doing things I shouldn't do.”

He titled his head to the side. His face broke out in a grin. “Miss Goody two shoes altered her driver’s license? Well, it appears I’m not the only one with questionable past.”

Debra found out where her favorite bikini top had gone after all of those years. It was a purple and white bikini that she thought looked so very good on her. She remembered looking for it, but she never found it. Was there no end to his puckish ways? “Why didn’t you return it?”

“Finders keepers Losers weepers. I found it in one of my drawers after we separated and I decided to keep it as a memory of you,” he said. She laughed, “Kiss me, you bad boy.” As a child, he had loved taking baths, and he still preferred baths to showers. Reading, relaxing and day dreaming in the bath are a few of his favorite things, so she was glad she was in a place that provoked his childhood memories.

They had been relaxing, drinking wine, eating chocolate and talking for two and half-hours but it felt like only a few minutes had passed. Chocolate, wine and a hot bath with the person you love. What more does a person need? The outside world did not exist. Time was non-existent. The bond they had developed between each other all those years ago had grown even stronger. They had to force themselves to get out of the bath She took the strong arms that were wrapped around her and placed them on the sides of the bathtub. Lifting her body from between his legs she slowing got out of the tub. Her back to him with water dripping from her body she reached for a soft white towel. Teasing him, putting on show while slowly drying herself. Looking over her shoulder she said, “Wait there. I have a gift for you,” and before he could say anything she was gone.

Next Chapter: Chapter 26 The Checker Game