ORONO (AP) – A Hermon woman who lost $4,500 in cash on Wednesday thought she’d never see her money again. She was wrong.

By chance, a neighbor found the rubber band-wrapped wad of cash on Route 2 and turned it into police. The cash then made its way back to Cindy Stevens, who had thought the money was gone forever.

Stevens was on her way to deposit the money to pay for a cruise vacation she is planning to take with her husband next month. But the money somehow fell out of her purse and onto Route 2 in Hermon as she drove to work.

Coincidentally, Stevens’ next-door-neighbor, Kevin Peary, saw a flash of green fly off a car as he was driving home after a shift at the Orono Fire Department, where he is a firefighter.

“I thought it was trash coming off the vehicle,” Peary said.

But when he stopped and realized it was a wad of cash, Peary called police and waited for Sgt. Bill Laughlin of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department to arrive before counting up the money.

“I knew it was probably a couple thousand,” Peary said.

Meanwhile, Stevens realized the cash was gone when she stopped for coffee in Bangor. Sick to her stomach, she called her husband and then reported the money missing to police.

“I said, Nobody’s going to turn that in,”‘ Stevens said.

Then on Friday morning, Stevens got good news when a Bangor police officer called to tell her about a story he had seen in that day’s Bangor Daily News about money that had been turned in to Hermon police.

Stevens called Laughlin and described the money: $4,500 in $50 and $100 bills wrapped in a rubber band.

The sergeant knew he was talking to the rightful owner.

When Stevens met Laughlin to pick up the money at the Orono Fire Department on Friday, she and Peary hugged. Then she gave Peary $500 as a reward for his exceptional neighborliness.

“For me to give you $500 means a lot to me,” Stevens said, choking up. “I wish I could give you more.”