Texas Moon. Joan Elliott Pickart

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.”

      “Whew,” Bram said. “You don’t have the ability to predict the future. We checked that out years ago when we were planning to bet five bucks on a Super Bowl.”

      “Yeah, well, I saw the future. A woman...an incredibly beautiful woman...named Nancy Shatner, who owns a store called Buttons and Beads, is in some kind of danger. I sensed the danger, but I don’t know how serious it is, or what the danger is from. I saw her in the visions pleading for help, crying, and she was wearing a bright blue shawl.”

      “Define incredibly beautiful,” Bram said, but his brothers ignored him.

      “Did you track her down?” Blue asked. “Does she own a blue shawl?”

      Tux stopped and shoved both hands through his thick hair.

      “Are you ready for this?” he said. “While I’m standing in her store, trying to convince her that my friend, who had the visions, isn’t totally nuts, a lady from down the block, who has a used clothes place, bounces in all excited because she’s bringing Nancy a bright blue shawl she knows Nancy will want to have.”

      “Holy smokes,” Bram uttered, his eyes widening.

      “No joke,” Blue said. “Is this for real? You don’t have any clue as to what kind of danger Incredibly Beautiful Nancy is in?”

      “Obviously not,” Jana-John said, coming into the room.

      “Therefore, you’d better watch over Nancy Shatner until this mystery is solved, Tux.”

      Blue and Bram had gotten to their feet the instant their mother appeared.

      Jana-John Bishop was just barely over five feet tall and had an ethereal aura. She seemed to float when she walked, just glided gracefully when she moved from one place to the next.

      Her blue eyes were clear and sparkling, her features those of her sons, but softened to feminine perfection. Her blond hair was swept to the top of her head and secured by two combs. The hairdo had taken her moments to arrange, and looked like she’d spent hours in a beauty salon to achieve the fetching, tousled affect

      Tonight she was wearing a flowing “something” that had been crafted from a multitude of filmy handkerchiefs.

      When the boys were small, one of their friends had asked them, “How come you got a fairy princess for a mom, and I only got a regular kinda mom?”

      “Hello, my darlings,” Jana-John said, kissing each on the cheek as they bent down so she could reach them. “Oh, you’re all so handsome, so fine.” She looked at Tux. “You’re disturbed by what has happened with your psychic powers, aren’t you, dear? I heard you talking while I was putting dinner on the table.

      “Bram, go retrieve your father from his study, and we’ll discuss Tux’s problem while we eat.”

      Tall, thin, Abraham Lincoln Bishop soon took his place at the head of the table. He’d fastened his shirt one button off, leaving it lopsided, and his dark hair stood straight up from long fingers being pulled through it during the day.

      He had a generally disheveled appearance and a bemused expression on his face. But when he met each of his sons’ gaze, Abe’s light blue eyes radiated warmth and love.

      “Good evening, darling wife,” Abe said, looking at Jana-John. “You look exquisite this evening.”

      “Thank you, love,” she said, smiling.

      She settled onto her chair at the opposite end of the table from her husband, and clasped her hands beneath her chin.

      “Isn’t this a delightful meal for a hot summer night?” she said. “There’s lemonade, sliced smoked chicken from the deli, two loaves of crunchy French bread, and a delicious fruit salad.”

      “Marvelous, my dear,” Abe said, beaming.

      Tux, Blue and Bram looked at the six bowls on the table. There was one filled with oranges, another held apples, then on they went—bananas, grapes, peaches and plums.

      “Fruit