A Promise of Thunder

glorious mane of hair, brushing her waist in so provocative a manner. Grady’s own mother’s hair was a deep, rich chestnut, but somehow this particular shade of blond was much more titillating. Suddenly the woman turned, and Grady saw that the rest of her was just as enticing as he supposed. He hadn’t looked at another woman with desire since Summer Sky had been taken from him. His briefencounters with the opposite sex had taken place merely to appease his healthy body and lustful urges, usually with widows of the tribe who made themselves available to unmarried males.
    Storm Kennedy tapped her foot impatiently. Where was Buddy? she wondered as she peered anxiously down the street for the wagon they had driven all the way from Missouri. Married less than a month, Storm and Buddy had decided to take advantage of the free land offered by the government. They had left their home in Missouri to take part in the land run in Oklahoma the moment they learned the Cherokee Strip had been opened to settlement. It seemed the only way they would ever be able to own land, and since neither were fainthearted, they had bid their families good-bye, pulled up stakes, and set out for Guthrie. They had arrived just this morning, and Buddy was out now trying to find them a place to sleep until the actual day of the land rush. While she was waiting, Storm had mailed a letter to their parents, informing them that they had arrived safely.
    Jostled by passersby, Storm found it increasingly difficult to maintain her stance at the edge of the wooden sidewalk. The sun was hot and she had forgotten her bonnet in the back of the wagon. Even now she could feel the heat penetrating the thick strands of her hair and beads of sweat collecting on her neck and dampening her collar.
    Suddenly she felt a prickling sensation at her nape and her flesh tingled, warning her of danger. Her warm sherry eyes narrowed as she raised them to seek out the cause of her distress. She saw nothing but people. People everywhere, coming, going, milling in front of stores and queuing in long lines at the train station to purchase tickets to take them to the Cherokee Outlet.
    Then she saw him.
    He was staring at her, his stark face intense with concentration. His midnight black hair hung beneath his shabby broad-brimmed hat to brush his massive shoulders, clubbed at the back with a leather thong. His dusty buckskins molded to the thick muscles of his torso and thighs. Instead of boots his feet were encased in comfortable moccasins. He wore his gun low on his narrow hips, tied down at the thigh in the manner of gun-slingers. A wicked-looking knife was tucked into his belt. Storm thought she had never seen a more dangerous-looking man. At first his inscrutable expression and torrid scrutiny frightened her, then it made her mad. Obviously he was an Indian. Or even worse, a half-breed. One of those despicable men scorned by both cultures.
    She returned his look, lifting her stubborn little chin at a defiant angle. She held his blistering gaze for all of five seconds before dragging her eyes away and deliberately turning her head in another direction. How darethe brazen creature stare at her in such a bold manner! she fumed in impotent rage. She was a married woman, for heaven’s sake. She had loved Buddy since they were both five years old.
    Grady was so amused by the frosty blonde’s efforts to ignore him that he allowed the tiniest of grins to soften his hard features. Briefly he wondered who she was and what she was doing in Guthrie. But his rapt attention diminished when he recalled that the woman was white, and her scathing perusal made it perfectly clear that she felt nothing but contempt for him. Which was fine with him. He had no use for whites, male or female. He had abandoned his mother’s people when he left Peaceful Valley to seek a life among the renegade tribes of the once mighty Lakota, called Sioux by the White Eyes.
    Grady shrugged off the unaccountable need to bound across the street and confront the woman and continued on his way. Remaining in Guthrie held little appeal for him, and he decided to retrieve his horse from the livery and be on his way. He wasn’t exactly unknown in these parts, due mostly to his association with renegades and later as a gunman spoiling for a fight. No matter what town he had drifted to since he left the reservation months ago, he had managed to cause enough trouble to earn him the title of “Renegade.”
    His