Fear flickered in her eyes—quick and sharp.
Not fear of him.
Fear of being found.
She swallowed hard, and her voice dropped to almost nothing.
“Jake… if they ask about me, you must say you never saw me.”
Jake leaned back, eyebrows lifting.
“They,” he repeated. “Who exactly is coming after a nun in the middle of a Kansas summer?”
Elise looked toward the door like someone might walk in any second. Like the walls themselves weren’t enough to keep the world out.
Then she whispered the words that made Jake’s spine tighten.
“Jake… I did not run from God.”
She paused, the pause heavy.
“I ran from the people inside the church.”
For a second, Jake just sat there staring at her like she’d told him the world was flat.
Running from God was one thing. Jake had known folks who drank themselves stupid and called it sin.
But running from the church itself?
That was a different storm.
Jake kept his voice calm, the same voice he used with horses that had been mistreated—soft, steady, patient.
“You can tell me,” he said. “No one else is here.”
Elise stared at her hands. They were shaking.
She took a breath that didn’t quite make it all the way down.
“Back at the mission in Dodge City,” she said, “things… were not holy anymore.”
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