Texas Moon

There, he decided, he had at least some of this disaster figured out, and felt better for it. The fact remained though, that he was well and truly stuck with the situation itself, had to see it through to its proper end.

He’d protect Nancy Shatner.

Because, for now, she was his.

Fine.

Tux turned on the radio and began to sing along to a country-and-western song declaring that mamas shouldn’t let their babies grow up to be cowboys.

“Whoa,” he said suddenly, “I’m supposed to be at Mom and Dad’s house for dinner.”

He flicked on the blinker, changed lanes, and concentrated on the heavy traffic.

He totally ignored the whispering little voice in his mind that repeated one word over and over...destiny.

In her apartment above Buttons and Beads, Nancy set a salad and a plate of toast on the table next to a tall glass of iced tea. She sank wearily onto a wobbly wooden chair and sighed.

The remainder of the day after Tux had left the store had seemed like a never-going-to-end series of hours. She’d had difficulty concentrating, and had to continually recount piles of beads as she lost track of what number she was on.

Images of what had taken place with Tux Bishop kept flitting before her mind’s eye from every direction.

She saw him frowning, then smiling that sinfully lethal smile, saw desire in the mesmerizing depths of his incredible blue eyes.

She saw herself in his arms, responding to his kisses in total abandon, her behavior far removed from her normal conduct.

And she saw the bright blue shawl.

Nancy picked up a slice of toast, glared at it, then dropped it back onto the plate. She got to her feet and crossed the small room to look out the window, her gaze sweeping over as much of the block as she could see.

Was there really something, someone, out there intent on doing her harm? Was she in danger from a source unknown?

Oh, if only she could turn back the clock, erase the moment that Tux had opened the door and entered Buttons and Beads, and remove this nightmare from her life.

But if she had the power to do that, she would never have experienced the ecstasy of kissing Tux, being held by him, savoring the wonderful feel of his magnificent, strong body pressed against her.

“Nancy,” she said dismally, “you’re a befuddled mess.”

She continued to stare out the window, her hands wrapped around her elbows.

She was tired, confused and frightened.

Two tears slid down her pale cheeks.

And for the first time in a long while, she was very, very lonely.

Three

When Tux entered the living room at his parents’ home, Blue and Bram were already there.

“Yo, big brother,” Blue called. “Do any cloak-and-dagger investigating today?”

“You could say that,” Tux replied, no hint of a smile on his face. “Punch any cows?”

Bram laughed. “He gotcha good, Blue. Before anyone asks... Yes, today I worked on building a building. Bishop Construction is alive and well, thank you very much.”

The brothers were all six feet tall, with well-proportioned physiques. They boasted the same shade of blue eyes, which most women commented on shortly after meeting them. Their features were similar. rugged, handsome, tanned, definitely declaring them to be related, but each uniquely their own.

But it was the contrasting shades of their hair that was immediately apparent when the three were together.

While Tux’s hair was blond and sun-streaked to nearly white in places, Blue’s was as black as a raven’s wing, causing his eyes to appear even a deeper, richer shade of sapphire. Bram’s shade of hair fell somewhere in between his brothers, being medium brown, with some sun-lightened streaks.

They were the Bishop boys, and each knew his brothers would lay their lives on the line for him.

Tux slouched into a green-and-red plaid chair that Jana-John had bought at a yard sale over twenty years before, deciding it was a “happy chair.” No one had questioned her as to how a chair could look “happy.” The now rather faded, lumpy creation had been set in place and never moved from the selected spot for two decades.

“You don’t look too happy, Tux,” Bram said, from where he sat on a blue-and-white striped sofa.

“Mmm,” Tux murmured.

Blue settled onto an old Boston rocker that Jana-John had used for countless hours to rock her babies.

“So?” Blue prompted. “Are you talking about it, Tux, or just mulling over whatever is eating at you? Your call, my man.”

“Where are the folks?” Tux asked.

Blue and Bram both shrugged.

“They’ll pop up,” Bram said, “providing they remember we’re here for dinner. I don’t smell anything cooking, though.” He smiled. “Which is safer, really. Maybe we’ll send out for pizza.”

“Hold that thought,” Blue said. “Pray that thought. We’ve got the greatest mother in Texas... hell, the world...but heaven knows she can’t cook. Hey, remember the time she decided to make us pancakes from scratch?”

“Yep,” Bram said, chuckling. “We sold them to every kid on the block. Twenty-five cents for a homemade, rock-hard Frisbee.”

Bram looked at Tux, who was staring into space, glowering at nothing.

“Okay, Tux,” Bram said. “I guess you’d better spill it before you explode.”

“I hate this,” Tux muttered. “I really hate this.”

“Hate what?” Blue and Bram said in unison.

Tux got to his feet and began to pace restlessly around the room that had been carpeted in a striped pattern of fuchsia, yellow and black.

“I had a vision,” Tux told them. “Correct that I had three visions in as many nights. I didn’t meditate, didn’t concentrate, didn’t go into a near-trance. The visions just came on their own.”

“That has never happened before,” Blue said.

“It gets worse,” Tux continued, still pacing around the room. “It turns out that the visions were predicting the future, not showing something in the present.”