Somewhere - somewhere - in the Albuquerque International Sunport was Gail Hussey's wedding ring: A one-carat diamond flanked by six smaller diamonds on each side on a wide platinum band.

Her trip to Albuquerque this month almost cost more than the plane ticket - it almost cost a broken heart.

Gail and Frank Hussey, of Wilmette, Ill., came to Albuquerque on Easter Sunday to visit in-laws. After four days, they headed for Los Angeles.

Used to a more humid Chicago climate, Gail Hussey slathered cream on her hands in the dry desert while waiting to board United Airlines flight 6473 about noon on April 20.

"I took off my beautiful diamond ring and put it on my lap," she said in a phone interview from her home.

She started talking to her husband of eight months about how much they missed their dog, about the trip ahead to Palm Springs, Calif. for his father's 80th birthday.

Soon they boarded the flight, where she flipped pages in a magazine and fell asleep.

When the plane landed in Los Angeles, "I gathered up my things and looked at my finger and said, `Where is my wedding ring?' "

The first thunk was the sound of her heart dropping.

The second was the sound of her husband's.

"He didn't say anything," Hussey said. "I didn't get `Honey, it's OK.' I think he thought it was gone."

It must have fallen off her lap at the Sunport.

"I said to Frank, `If I was to find this ring I would turn it in to somebody. Wouldn't you do that if you found it?' "

She would.

He would.

But would someone else?

Once in the L.A. airport, Frank Hussey used his cell phone to call Albuquerque's airport lost and found. He was told no one had turned it in.

They learned the rest of the story from Sunport employees and an American woman who lives in Saudi Arabia who found the ring. Gail Hussey spoke to her by phone a few days later.

While waiting for a flight, the woman's daughter spied something shiny.

The woman took the ring to lost and found. A repeated airport page didn't turn up a claim. It was given back to her.

An airport jeweler confirmed it wasn't zircon or crystal, so she gave it to a police officer.

He took it back to the lost and found in the Sunport about the time a United customer service rep in Los Angeles called again to check.

So one of the Hussey's in-laws went to the airport the following day to retrieve it, and by nightfall Gail Hussey's ring was back on her finger.

"As far as airports, well, I feel like I was blessed that this person was so honest," she said.

What else?

"I'm never taking my ring off again."