A Promise of Thunder

refused him. He had warned her that he would take another woman if she refused to share his bed, and at the time it hadn’t seemed to matter. How could she willingly sleep with the man responsible for Buddy’s death? But that was before. Before …
    Before he had made her need him.
    Before she had grown to love him.
    “Laughing Brook, what the hell are you doing in my bed?” Grady’s harsh whisper hissedthrough his clenched teeth.
    “I want you, Thunder. Little Buffalo loves me. Why did you marry
her?
She is no good for you. I can make you happy. My parents expected us to marry after my sister’s death. Why did you disappoint them?”
    “Get back to your bed immediately,” Grady said in a low growl. “Do you want Storm to hear us?”
    “I don’t care.” She sounded like a spoiled child denied a sweet.
    “Now, Laughing Brook. I will send you back to the reservation immediately if you ever attempt anything like this again.”
    “You are a warrior. How can you live without a woman’s comfort?”
    “Go, Laughing Brook.” Laughing Brook knew when she was defeated. The threat in Grady’s stern voice finally made an impression on her. Reluctantly she crawled from under the covers and back into Storm’s bed.
    Storm knew the moment Laughing Brook returned to bed. She had no idea how long Laughing Brook had been with Grady on his pallet before she awoke and noted her absence, but it must have been long enough to—to—God, she couldn’t even say it.
    In the space of a week Grady had built the addition to the cabin and moved the double bed he and Storm shared into it, placing two cots, one for Tim and one for Laughing Brook, in the main room of the cabin.He had worked at a frantic pace so he and Storm could be assured of the privacy they so desperately needed. Now all they needed to do when they wanted to be alone was close the door to their bedroom. During that week he had been puzzled, then angered by Storm’s coldness. It seemed as if they hadn’t a moment alone to discuss their differences. With either Tim or Laughing Brook making demands upon his time any privacy he and Storm might have found was forever being interrupted.
    And the state of affairs between Storm and Tim hadn’t improved any. The boy seemed to hate Storm and still looked to Laughing Brook for direction. Grady stopped just short of punishing his son for his defiance. He wanted Storm to win Tim’s love through her wit and ingenuity. He believed that once Tim lost his belligerence they would form a close relationship. In the meantime he hated to send Laughing Brook away for fear of traumatizing Tim, who seemed unable to function without his surrogate mother.
    Grady felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him as he put the finishing touches on the roof of the new room he had built. Tonight, he thought gleefully, he and Storm would be alone in the new bedroom, where they could talk and make love. Being in the same room with her these past days and unable to love her had been the sweetest agony he had ever suffered. So close yet so damn far. If he were onthe reservation he’d be the brunt of many jokes once his friends learned that a Lakota warrior couldn’t control his woman.
    Grady walked around to the back of the cabin, hoping to find Storm alone in the vegetable garden she had planted so he could tell her they would be moving into their new bedroom tonight. He found Storm and Tim deep in conversation. His small son was standing before Storm, hands on hips, his lower lip protruding at a stubborn angle and his black eyes defiant. He stopped short when he heard Tim say, “You’re a white witch. I don’t have to listen to you. Laughing Brook says you must be a witch to get Papa to marry you.” Suddenly he stared up at her curiously, as if trying to make up his mind. “Are you? Are you really a witch?”
    Grady waited, unwilling to interfere until he heard Storm’s reply. He knew his son was being deliberately cruel, but he was also aware that Tim came by his stubbornness naturally, and the boy was angry at having been uprooted from the reservation, the only home he remembered.
    “If I was a witch I’d wave my magic wand and make Laughing Brook disappear,” Storm replied, more sharply than she intended. She was at her wit’s end trying to make Tim accept her. “I don’t want to take Laughing Brook’s place in your heart, I just want us to be friends.”
    “Laughing Brook is my friend. Papa should have married