“What the fuck are you doing here, Shane?!” she shouted, but found that she was actually pleased to see her old friend.

“Well, I gotta say you have still got it, Porter,” Shane laughed, eyeing Bette.

But Bette didn’t mind, waving Shane over to her.  She drew Shane in for a deep, warm embrace when her friend stepped closer.

They held each other for a long time.

Finally, Shane drew back, laughed, looked down at her clothes, and said, “Well… I am soaked, right now, so let me change.”

“Pffft…,” Bette said, dismissively, as she turned the taps to refill the Jacuzzi with hot water.

“Why don’t you just bring your stuff over to the bedroom, and join me here?”

“Wow… you have changed, Bette,” Shane said, smiling.

A few minutes later, she eased into the Jacuzzi, at the opposite end from Bette.

Bette’s eyes were shut.  Shane had picked up a bottle of beer, and set it down next to the side of the Jacuzzi she had settled into.  She saw that Bette had been drinking champagne. The champagne bottle was on ice, next to Bette’s side of the Jacuzzi, and a cold plate of cut fruit sat near where her right arm was casually slung.

This place is the bomb, Shane thought, as she looked around.

“Enjoying yourself out here, are you?” she asked Bette, casually.

“Uh, huh…. “ Bette responded.

She took a sip from the champagne, opened her eyes, then grabbed the plate of fruit and offered some to Shane.

“I did not expect anything like this surprise,” she said. She cocked her head to one side, “How on earth did you find me?”

Shane smiled, tapped her head with one finger, “just got a thought into the ol’ noggin here, when Kit told us you were in Colombo.”

She continued, “and I think you wanted to be found, Bette. Otherwise, you would not have left out an instruction to Kit not to tell anyone, the way you had been instructing her previously.”

“I think you were unconsciously hoping that someone would figure it out…well, that someone is me!”

Bette was shaking her head, ”Honestly Shane, I did not think things through that way.  I was simply tired out from being out  in fields for the past month and just hurriedly connected to Mike when I could, and one of the things I talked to him about was Kit.”