If someone from town found her like this—lying in his arms, his hands on her—Jake didn’t need to imagine how that story would get told. Folks didn’t leave room for innocence when a woman in a habit was involved. They filled in blanks with gossip and called it truth.
And the fear in her voice told him something else, too:
Whoever she was running from… might not be far behind.
Jake made a decision without saying it out loud.
He slid one arm under her knees, another behind her back, and lifted her carefully.
She weighed almost nothing, and that scared him. A grown woman shouldn’t feel that light unless life had been trimming her down piece by piece.
She leaned into his chest like she had no strength left to fight anything.
Jake carried her toward his horse, the hooves still distant but closer now, and one question kept circling in his head like a hawk:
What could be so forbidden it drove a young nun into the middle of the Kansas prairie?
Jake rode slow, keeping one arm steady around her so she wouldn’t slide off the saddle. He didn’t gallop. Galloping would draw eyes and kick up a trail that could be followed. He kept it steady and quiet, the way you move when you know you’re being watched—even if you can’t see the watcher yet.
The nun stayed limp against him, breathing shallow, head resting lightly on his chest. Every now and then she would stir, her fingers tightening on his shirt like she was grabbing the last safe thing in the world and refusing to let go.
By the time the creek near Hollister Ranch came into view, Jake realized something strange.
She hadn’t fought him.
Not even when she woke halfway and seemed to realize she was being carried by a man she’d never met. No flailing. No panic. No scream.
Just that tight grip, and a silence that felt like trust mixed with exhaustion.
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