Texas Moon

“Call me Jeremiah, son,” the man answered. “Well, you’ve brought me an interesting tale, that’s for sure. But in all my years of researching psychic phenomena, I’ve always had to admit the same conclusion...there are no hard-and-fast rules we can count on.”

Tux leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers loosely together.

“Can you at least give me your opinion on what has happened?” he asked. “Why did I suddenly have visions predicting the future when I have never before had the power to do that? Even more, how do I know that what I saw will actually take place?”

“The blue shawl has already appeared, son.”

Tux slouched back in the chair. “I know.” He sighed and shook his head. “I hate this.”

Dr. Nixon chuckled. “A person wouldn’t need psychic powers to figure that out. You obviously like to be in control of your life, and at the moment you feel dictated to by outside forces.”

“Exactly. Not only that, there’s Nancy Shatner to consider. She’s in danger, or will be. But to what degree? I mean, maybe the fear I sensed, then saw on her face in the visions, was because a mouse ran across her floor.”

“Good point,” Jeremiah agreed, nodding. “It’s reasonable to me that your psychic ability took a side trip to an arena where it has never been, but due to your lack of experience, the danger that surrounds Nancy is not easily deciphered.”

“I hate this,” Tux repeated.

“Well, to be prudent, I’d suggest you assume the worst. Use the cliché of ‘better to be safe than sorry.’ You’d best watch over Nancy Shatner.”

“But for how long? In the first place, it’s difficult to continually remember when I’m talking to Nancy that I’m supposedly representing a friend of mine who has the powers, but I sure don’t want to tell Nancy the truth. She’s already used the word creepy in regard to this. I can live without that and the other adjectives she’d come up with. Secondly, I don’t know what the danger is, how serious it might be, or how ridiculous.”

“True. If she does see a mouse and gets hysterical, then that’s the end of the story. But you did say she works and lives in a high-crime neighborhood, so...” Dr. Nixon’s voice trailed off.

“Yeah, I hear you,” Tux said, frowning.

“Having listened to the details of your background, Tux, you’re more than capable of protecting Nancy.” He paused. “The lifelong researcher in me is fascinated by all of this. I’m just sorry I can’t give you concrete data as to why this happened. All I can offer you is my opinion.”

“Which is?”

“I believe that you and Nancy Shatner are connected in some way. The men of science would say that you two had an unexplainable link that enabled you to receive a message from Nancy that was based on events yet to happen.”

“Great,” Tux said dryly.

“However, there might be another theory coming from the romantics, those who speak more from their hearts than their minds.”

“Oh?”

“They’d be inclined to feel that you and Nancy are soul mates, found each other with thoughts before you actually met. She called out to you, you came. Destiny, son, destiny.”

“And you? What do you believe?”

Dr. Nixon smiled. “I believe I’ll be very eager to hear which theory proves to be true. You will keep me posted, won’t you?”

Tux got to his feet. “Yes, of course I will, providing I survive it all. I swear, I really—”

“Hate this,” Jeremiah concluded for him, laughing. “Tux, the data is crystal clear.”

Destiny.

When Dr. Nixon had explained the two approaches to viewing the situation, Tux had filed the information and not paid active attention to it.

But as he drove away from the old gentleman’s house, he realized he was actually hearing for the first time that portion of what had been said.

Destiny.

Destiny?

Ah, come on, give it a rest, Tux thought, with an impatient shake of his head. That really was the nonsense of romantics.

Soul mates.

He was chucking that one out the window, too. He and Nancy Shatner were not soul mates, not each other’s destiny. That was a bunch of hogwash. He and Nancy had connected by thought waves because they hadn’t yet met as they were destined to do? Ridiculous.

But...

Nancy had called out to him.

And he’d come.

She was in some kind of potential danger.

He fully intended to watch over and protect her until the source of that danger could be discovered and dealt with,

He’d been determined to locate the beautiful, gypsylike woman, who had pleaded for help in his visions.

And when he did find her, he’d kissed her.

Tux tightened his hold on the steering wheel and shifted slightly on the seat as heat coiled low and tight in his body from the remembrance of the kisses shared with Nancy.

She’d turned him inside out, that was for sure. He’d never been so instantly consumed by lust when kissing a woman.

“Wrong,” he said, smacking the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

It hadn’t been just lust. What had swept throughout him like a hot, flaming rocket when he’d held Nancy in his arms, kissed her, savored the feel of her feminine, delicate body nestled against him, had not been just lust.

There had been a maze of indiscernible emotions tumbling through his mind as well. He’d recognized protectiveness and possessiveness, but the remainder were a tangled puzzle.

Protectiveness? That was easily explained. Nancy was in some kind of danger from an event yet to take place. It was perfectly natural for a decent, basically nice guy, to be determined to protect her from that danger lurking in future shadows.

Possessiveness? Well, that was reasonable, too. After all, he was the one who had been mentally informed of that danger, then delivered the news flash of its existence to Nancy. She was his for the duration of this dilemma; his to protect. His. Hence, the emotion of possessiveness.

Tux nodded decisively.

Destiny? Soul mates? Forget it. He was a realist, a man who operated with his feet firmly on the ground.

Logical thinking dictated that romantic-based psychic messages could only be received by someone who had a mind receptive to those kinds of thoughts, a place to receive them.

That wasn’t him, not by a long shot. Therefore, he was back to Dr. Nixon’s theory one, the scientific analysis. By some cosmic...or whatever...fluke, his brain waves had mistakenly connected with Nancy’s. It was like dialing the telephone and getting the wrong number.