A Promise of Thunder

was lowered and she appeared to be studying the tips of her fingers. Grady assumed the shock of finding her home destroyed had sent her deep into depression.
    “Are you all right?” he asked. The obvious concern in his voice brought her head up. She nodded. “Do you want to talk?”
    “What can I say? My home is gone; there’s not enough money left to rebuild or put in crops. What little cash remains from Buddy’s inheritance is earmarked for the purchase of cattle.”
    “Do you have enough money to get you back to Missouri? If not, I can offer you a small loan.”
    “And give up my homestead?” Storm shot back, startled that he would suggest such a thing. “You expect me to surrender meeklyafter what Turner did to me? The land is mine! Do you hear me? No one is going to take that away from me.” Her voice rose in fierce defense of what she and Buddy had worked so hard for. Owning land was her dream, and she had won the coveted homestead despite the obstacles she had been forced to overcome.
    “What do you intend to do?” Grady asked, amazed by her fierce determination to see her dream through. Most women would be too stricken to continue on alone after suffering losses such as Storm had known. But then, he knew of no other woman who had the gumption to join the rush for land and homestead without a man beside her. Storm Kennedy seemed to thrive on adversity.
    “I—don’t know. Get a job, maybe, until I can earn enough money to rebuild my cabin.”
    “That will take years. I’m sure there will be no problem with keeping the homestead, for you did fulfill the necessary requirements. It’s not your fault it was destroyed by fire. You probably wouldn’t be required to rebuild till spring, but you couldn’t possibly earn enough by then to start a new cabin. Then there are taxes. Have you considered that?”
    The thought of paying taxes on her homestead nearly defeated Storm. If she was a coward, she could give up everything and go home, but she hated to burden her parents with another mouth to feed. Buddy’s parents weren’t any better off than her own family, though they only had two children leftat home. Besides, she feared the Kennedys would blame her for Buddy’s death and hate her for keeping what remained of Buddy’s small inheritance from his grandmother instead of returning it to them. She had always gotten along with the Kennedys, but they had never fully forgiven them for taking off for Oklahoma to claim land when he could remain in Missouri and eke out a meager living on the farm.
    I’m homeless and virtually penniless
, Storm thought with humbling insight. The only money available to her lay in the sale of her homestead. But failure didn’t sit well with Storm. She was a pioneer in the true sense of the word, and claiming a homestead had been the ultimate experience of her life. It had been a proud day when she drove her stakes into the ground. To sell it now would utterly devastate her.
    “I’ll think of something.”
    Grady grew pensive as he watched Storm fight back tears. She appeared on the edge of collapse, and he wondered what had held her together this long. He had thought her white blood made her different from the People, but he was learning that she possessed as strong a spirit as any Sioux warrior. And though he hated to admit it, responsibility for her husband’s death weighed heavily on him. He fervently wished he could turn his back on her and let her solve her seemingly insurmountable problems on her own, but he could not.
    Then, somewhere from the inner chambers of his brain came the thought that Storm actually did possess qualities that would make her a good mother for Little Buffalo. He loved his son and missed him fiercely. It was time he and Little Buffalo were reunited. It suddenly occurred to him that he could discharge his responsibility to Storm Kennedy and make a home for his son at the same time. He smiled at the simplicity of the solution to all their problems. Storm would have a home, he could have his son with him as he’d always intended, and have a passionate woman to share his bed.
    “I have come to a decision, Storm Kennedy.”
    Storm’s eyelashes flew up as she regarded him with mild curiosity. His gaze was so intense, she felt herself drowning in the deep blue pools of his eyes. A thrill of apprehension shot down her spine and she instinctively knew something of tremendous import was about to be revealed. Something that could change her life