The Outlaw's Lady

“Well, you’d hardly have to do much to behave better than those Dupree girls, Mr. Parrish. They were fidgety before, but once they spotted you, they became impossible.”

Was it a test to see if he enjoyed the admiring glances of women? He’d seen the silly chits eyeing him, but they held no appeal. It had been this woman he’d come to meet.

“Ah, well, there’s no accounting for taste, is there, Miss Hennessy?” he said lightly.

She met his gaze as if she weren’t quite sure how to take his remark. “Just make yourself comfortable, Mr. Parrish,” she said, gesturing toward one of the two ornately carved chairs she had been using all afternoon for her subjects.

“We have been introduced, Miss Hennessy. You may call me Sandoval.”

Tess Hennessy did nothing to indicate she had heard him, merely moved the second chair away from the one in which he sat, and ignored his murmur that he could have done that for her. “I’ll just be a few moments preparing the plate,” she said, disappearing once more under the canvas hood.

“So you are called Tess, not Teresa, Miss Hennessy?” he asked, trying to keep her talking while all he could see of her, from his vantage point in the chair, was her navy-blue skirt. “It suits you.”

“By my family. Uncle Samuel is my godfather, so he has that privilege, too.” As you do not on such short acquaintance, he knew she meant. Her voice was muffled by the heavy fabric, but he didn’t miss the starch in it. Sandoval smiled inwardly at her attempt to put him in his place. Tess Hennessy had the tart tongue to go with the fiery hair that the knot at the nape of her neck barely restrained anymore. He settled into a pose, staring back at the camera with a half smile. He let her direct him in how to hold his head, where to put his hands. When she announced that she was finished, he stood and told her he would pick up the finished product in three days at her shop.

“But…perhaps you didn’t understand. I can have it done by the end of the day for you, Mr. Parrish,” she said, taking a step after him. “It will come complete with a matte and protective folder.”

“Ah, but your grandfather tells me one can also purchase frames at your shop, custom-made for the picture by your assistant. I would like a frame suitable for the picture, a gilt frame, if that is possible?”

“Of course, we can make such a frame for it,” she said. “You said you will pick it up on Tuesday?”

Sandoval nodded. Had he imagined the slight heightening of color in her cheeks when she realized she would see him again? “Would late morning be convenient?”

“I’ll expect you then, Mr. Parrish.” Her voice was brisk, businesslike. A prelude to goodbye. She stared down at the notebook she’d taken out to note the appointment.

He wanted more than that from her, despite his realization that mutual interest might complicate things. “If you like,” he went on, “I’d be honored to take you to lunch at the hotel across from your shop. I’m told they have good food.” He said it to gauge her reaction to him. Both of them would be many miles from Chapin by then, if all went according to his plan.

Her chin jerked up again. “I…I don’t know…I’ll have to think about it,” she said.

“Very well, Miss Hennessy. Until Tuesday, then.” He felt her eyes upon him as he strode away.

“Aren’t you done yet, Tess?” Amelia Hennessy shouted through the heavy canvas of the developing tent. The sudden sound caused Tess to straighten quickly and bang her head on the support post, exacerbating the pounding headache she already had. She didn’t know why her mother thought she had to shout, as if the canvas were a six-foot-thick adobe wall.

“No, not quite, Mama, why?” Tess replied, purposefully vague, though she was brushing varnish on the last picture. If she left at the same time as her parents, her mother would insist on critiquing the party with her—who had worn what, who had been flirting with whom, the quality and quantity of the food, and so forth—which would require Tess to drive her vehicle abreast of the victoria. After spending most of a day with social chatter droning into her ears, Tess was looking forward to being alone with her thoughts. She already knew what—or rather whom—she was going to think about.

“It’s late. Your father and I are ready to leave.”

Under the canvas, Tess pushed an errant lock of hair off her damp forehead, feeling wilted and sticky. She resolved never again to accept any commissions that involved outdoor photography in the heat of a south Texas summer. It was no longer necessary to protect the photographs from the light, but remaining under the hood allowed her to protect the drying photographs from dust and insects.

“You go ahead, then,” she said, praying her mother would do so without further questions. “I’ll drive back when I’m finished. I won’t be too much longer.”

She heard Amelia loose a heavy sigh. “Very well, but be home before dark, won’t you? Have Sam escort you.”

Tess stifled the urge to remind her mother it was only a mile between the Taylors’ place and Hennessy Hall. She was not about to ask Uncle Samuel to saddle a horse and escort her as if she were six years old and afraid of the dark. Would her mother ever treat her as a grown woman? Why, her sister Bess had been married at seventeen!

Tess was the youngest child, the only one left at home. Perhaps that explained her mother’s overprotectiveness. She resolved to be more patient with her.

“You need your rest, Tess. Don’t forget, church tomorrow, and your brother and his family are coming for Sunday dinner.”

She always enjoyed going to the little church in Chapin they had always attended, and it would be good for her mother to see Robert and his family. They lived in Houston and weren’t able to visit often. Having three lively grandchildren around would distract her mother, and surely Tess could gain some breathing room.

“Well, aren’t you going to come out from beneath that thing and tell your parents goodbye?” Amelia asked, her tone reproachful.

It wasn’t as if they were going to be parted for more than an hour, but Tess deemed her last picture dry enough, so she obliged her mother by throwing the flap open and giving her mother an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

When she drew back, she found her mother staring at one of the portraits she had just finished and pinned up to dry. Sandoval Parrish’s image stared back at them, his eyes dark and probing, as if he wanted to penetrate the soul of whoever gazed at the picture. There was definitely something about the man that disturbed Tess’s peace, though she could not have said how, precisely.

Amelia’s peace had apparently been disturbed as well. “Sam Taylor introduced you to that man? He must have done it when I wasn’t looking. Why, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,” her mother said indignantly, snatching the picture from where it was pinned on the drying board and whirling around.

“Mama, it’s not completely dry. Be careful!” Tess pleaded, following her and hoping she would not have to tell Parrish her mother had ruined the picture and he would have to sit for it again. She couldn’t help glancing around to see if Parrish was still around and had heard her mother, but she saw no sign of him.

Her mother, however, had spotted her husband and Taylor standing by the hitched and ready victoria, and was already sailing off in their direction, her bearing rigid with indignation, brandishing the photograph in front of her.

“Mama, please, he only sat for a picture!” Tess protested, not wanting Uncle Samuel to be the victim of one of her mother’s dramatic scenes. She knew better than to mention that her godfather had practically thrown the two of them together. She was also unwilling to admit—even to herself—that there had been more in Parrish’s eyes than the mere politeness and cooperation a subject would give a photographer.

“Sam Taylor, what were you thinking?” Amelia demanded.

“What’s wrong, Amelia?” Taylor asked, his face honestly confused. He looked to Patrick Hennessy for enlightenment, but seeing his friend looking as surprised as he was at Amelia’s outburst, turned back to her. “Did I do something to upset you, dear lady?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Amelia Hennessy snapped. “Introducing that man to our youngest daughter. Why, everyone in Hidalgo County knows he’s little more than a bandito!” her mother cried. “I could not believe my eyes when I saw him strolling around the grounds today as if he were as good as anyone else. Why on earth would you invite such a man, let alone introduce him to an innocent girl?”

Her father peered at the photograph, and when he looked up, his eyes were troubled. “So that’s who that was. Sam, I hear tell he’s rumored to be a compadre of Delgado himself.” The questioning note in his voice echoed his wife’s concern.

It was no light charge. Delgado was a notorious Mexican outlaw who raided Texas ranches along the Rio Grande, then ran back across the border with his loot—horses, jewelry, guns, sometimes even a rancher’s entire herd of cattle.

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Patrick,” Sam protested. “I’ve known Sandoval Parrish since he was just a sprout, back in my days as a Ranger. You surely don’t think I’d introduce my goddaughter to a bad hombre, do you? I’d ride the river with that man anytime.”

Tess blinked in surprise. In Texas, saying a man was good enough to ride the river with was high praise. It meant he was as trustworthy as they came.

And saying it was enough, apparently, to leave her voluble mother speechless.

Seeing that, Sam pressed his advantage. “And like Tessie said, all she did was take his picture.”

Tess smiled at the nickname, one she hadn’t heard him use in years. But Amelia Hennessy was never speechless for long. Handing the picture back to her daughter, she said, “Tess is our youngest child, and I’ll thank you to ask us before you introduce her to anyone, Samuel Taylor.”

Samuel hung his head. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, Amelia, I didn’t mean t’ ruffle your feathers.”

Patrick sighed. “No harm done,” he assured his friend. “As you say, she only took his picture.”

“And a fine job she did, too,” Sam said, glancing at it. “Not only Parrish’s, but all the ones she took today. Everyone told me how pleased they were. I’m much obliged to your daughter, Amelia and Patrick. Tess, why don’t you come up to the house and we’ll settle up?”

The sun was sinking behind a distant line of mesquite when the mule pulled Tess’s wagon off the palm-lined lane onto the main road. Despite her most diligent efforts to be on her way quickly, Uncle Samuel and Aunt Lula Marie had been in a buoyant, post-party mood and were loath to let her go until Tess finally insisted she must be on her way or her mother would make her father come back to fetch her.

Tess let Ben have his head, for the mule knew the way home. It had been a very profitable day, Tess mused. With the money she’d been paid today, and the enthusiastic response she’d gotten from the guests that would surely lead to further business, she was that much closer to her goal of traveling to New York City. Portfolio of her best work in hand, she would waltz into the studio of the famed Mathew Brady himself and offer her services. He would be so impressed he’d hire her on the spot.

It was an idea that horrified her mother, who prophesied a dire end to a young lady who ventured anywhere into the Dreadful North, let alone a huge, wicked city such as New York. She would starve to death without the Protection of a Man to see that she ate only in Decent God-fearing Establishments, be accosted by rascals bent on No Good, and her traveling funds would be ripped from their place of safekeeping in the hem of her skirts.

“You have to remember that your mother lived through the War Between the States, darlin’,” her father always reminded her. “And while the Yankees never penetrated as far inland as Hidalgo County, it seemed for a while they might. Then we got word of her cousin Lucretia being murdered by bummers during Sherman’s March to the Sea. You’re her last precious chick in the nest, Tess darlin’, and she’s anxious to see you married and settled.”

“But I’m never going to marry. I want to do something more with my life.”

“Darlin’, darlin’, never say never,” her father advised. “Some nice young man may well come along and change your mind. And it’s not impossible you might meet him in New York,” he’d added, surprising her. “I came ashore there, fresh off the boat from Ireland some thirty-five years ago, and it wasn’t so bad a place. If you must go, I’ll have Robert escort you there.”

Not if, Papa—when. And when she went, she was going alone. She loved her elder brother, but he was just as overprotective as Mama and sure he knew the only right way to do anything. Besides, he had a family to look out for. It would have been fun to have another girl her age along, but once they had become young ladies, all of Tess’s school friends had become obsessed with beaux and clothing, and affected to swoon at the idea of leaving all that for some musty old photography studio up north.

One minute Tess’s wagon was rolling alone along the shadowy, mesquite-and cactus-lined road; the next, figures like ghosts had emerged from the scrub and formed themselves in lines in front of her wagon and behind it. All of them, dressed in the simple, light-colored clothing of Mexican peasants, were pointing rifles or pistols at her.

Chapter Three

“Hola, señorita,” a mustachioed fellow in the center of the road called out, smiling broadly. “Buenas noches.”

Tess began to shake—not out of fear—or at least, it wasn’t mostly fear, but rage. Less than a mile from home, she was now about to forfeit the fifty dollars for which she had labored all day to a handful of banditos. She would have given anything she had for a Winchester carbine in her lap right now.

“I don’t have anything you want,” she said, hoping she could bluff it out. “Just a camera and a wagon full of chemicals for developing photographs.”

The mustachioed man translated her words to the others. Laughter rang out as Tess fumed. She hadn’t been put here to amuse them! One evil-eyed man, standing on Mustachio’s left, sniggered.

“You don’t have anything we want? Ah, señorita, I am not so sure about that,” he countered with an insolent grin that flashed white teeth against his brown skin.

Tess tried to stare him down with her haughtiest look, but failed. Rage was fast transforming itself into pure, unalloyed fear as she realized they could do anything they wanted with her—anything.

With a pang, she made the decision to surrender the fifty dollars and hope they would be content with that. The idea hurt her, but not as much as it would have to give them the camera and supplies. She switched to Spanish. She’d learned it early in a household run by Mexican servants. “All right, I will give you my money, if you’re so desperate, but you must leave me my camera and the wagon. It’s how I make my living.”

The man smiled at her fluent Spanish, but his reply was not conciliatory. “Señorita, do you take me for a fool?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean,” she said, setting her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t betray her by chattering. “You’re not…are you saying you want the mule, too?” Ben had been at Hennessy Hall since Uncle James had died, and she hated the thought of handing him over to these outlaws. God, please send someone along this road. Anyone. These men would flee if I wasn’t alone.

You’re not alone. I am with you.

The bandito just smiled at her. “Señorita, it is good news that you have money—it is added luck for us. But it is not your camera, Señorita Hennessy, that we came for.”

“How do you know my name?” Startled by that, the rest of what he said didn’t register at first.

“The lady photographer? Señorita, you are famous along the Rio Grande.”

She was getting very tired of his grin. “But I told you, I make my living with that camera. You can’t take it!”

“Oh, but we can, señorita,” he said, almost apologetically. “We are, after all, ladrones—thieves. It’s how we make our living.”

Now, because he was toying with her, she was angry again. “Are you thinking to sell it? Don’t bother—I very much doubt anyone between here and Mexico City would know how to use it!”

Señor Mustachio tsk-tsked at her. “Señorita, it is clear you have no high opinion of Mexicans.” He shrugged. “What you say is true—we would not know how to use it. But el jefe has a fancy to have his picture made, as well as a picture history of his exploits, you see.”

Nothing he was saying made sense, but she was willing to engage him in conversation as long as she could on the chance that someone might happen along to rescue her. “El jefe?” she echoed. “Who’s that?”

“Our leader, señorita. Perhaps you have heard of him? His name is Delgado.”

Delgado, the notorious outlaw her parents and others at the party had been talking about only this afternoon.

“But if none of you knows how to operate a camera,” she said desperately, “or even if you did, how to develop the pictures…”

He beamed as if she had suddenly grasped the secret of their plan. “Then, obviously, you will have to come with us to take the pictures, Señorita Hennessy.”

“C-come with you? Me? You’re loco! I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Mustachio laughed and said something in rapid-fire Spanish to his fellows. Despite the fury that sent the pulse throbbing in her ears, Tess thought she heard the word pelirroja, the same word she’d heard one of the Hennessy housemaids call her. Redhead.

As one man, they aimed their weapons at her again.

“You see, you have no choice, señorita,” he said. “But do not worry. If you come with us, you will not be harmed. When Delgado has his pictures, you will be free to return to your home.”

Tess had had enough of his carefree banter. “Well, that’s just dandy!” she cried. “If you think for one cotton-picking moment I’m going to tamely disappear and frighten my mother to death, you’d better think again.”

They were beginning to advance, guns still trained on her. Frantically she looked backward, then ahead, but there was no one on the road but herself and the bandits. With nothing else to do, she opened her mouth and screamed. Please, God, let someone hear me!

She had not guessed any of the bandits could move so fast, but in what seemed like the blink of an eye Tess had been yanked off the seat of her wagon by the evil-eyed man who had laughed at her. He stank of stale onions, garlic and sweat.

Tess went wild, screaming and kicking. She knew that one of her kicks must have connected with something tender when she heard the man grunt and loose his hold on her.

“Bruja!”

In that instant she broke free and, crazy with hope, began to run.

Tess had only covered a few yards when she was tackled by one of the bandits, knocking the wind out of her. Her cheek stung from sliding against a rough rock and her mouth was gritty with dust, but before she could gather enough air to scream again, Tess found herself gagged and bound at her wrists and ankles. In mere moments she was lifted into the bed of the wagon and laid out in the center, surrounded by her bottles of chemicals. She felt the wagon lurch forward and realized they were moving off the road and into the brush.

Where were they taking her? Would she ever see home again? If only she had listened to her mother and gone home when they had, or had Uncle Samuel ride along with her! Or were they so determined to capture the “lady photographer” that the presence of others would have been no deterrent, and might have resulted in her parents’ murders? Now, bowling along over the rocky scrubland as night fell, covered by the heavy canvas, no one would see her being taken away from everyone and everything she knew. Her stomach churned with nausea and fear.

Tess began to sob, soundlessly because of the gag, but soon her inability to clear her nostrils made breathing too difficult to continue crying. Then she could only lie there, feel the lurching and jerking as the wheels rolled over the uneven ground, and watch the last hints of light disappear from the tiny chinks in the sideboards of the wagon bed. At last, exhausted by terror, she slept.

Tess woke because of a sudden absence of the rocking, swaying movement that had haunted her dreams. Were they stopping temporarily, or had they reached Delgado’s hideout?

Before she could listen for clues to the answer, the canvas under which she lay was shoved back off the wagon bed, blinding her with a sudden blast of sunlight. With her wrists and ankles still tied, Tess could only clench her eyes tightly shut.

“Idiotas! Necios!”

The man went on yelling in Spanish so rapidly that Tess could only comprehend that someone was being berated. She assumed it must be Delgado. After all, he would not want his henchmen to manhandle the lady who was about to make him immortal. Now she kept her eyes closed because she was afraid to have her worst fears confirmed. The voice barked out another spate of words, clearly a command, and she felt the bonds at her wrists and ankles being severed.

Tess knew she could not shut out the reality of her situation forever. As soon as she could shade her eyes with one hand against the brilliant sunlight, she raised herself on one elbow and peered at the speaker.

And saw with astonishment that it was not Delgado or any other stranger, but Sandoval Parrish who stood looking at her over the side of the wagon.

“You!” Before she could put together a rational, prudent thought, she had struggled up onto her feet and launched herself at him, fingers curved into claws.

He caught her easily before she could do any damage, and holding her wrists gently, but with an underlying steely strength, kept them pinioned against the side of the wagon. His body was next to hers, rather than directly in front of her, so that even if she were foolish enough to bring up one of her knees, she couldn’t hurt him.

“Calm yourself, Tess Hennessy,” he said, in the same soothing, low voice one would use to soothe a fractious horse. “No harm is going to come to you.”

“No harm?” Tess cried. “I’ve been kidnapped and transported to who knows where, and my family has no idea what has happened to me, and you call that no harm? Sandoval Parrish, you are every bit the scoundrel my mother said you were!” There were no words for the depth of her hurt and disillusionment with him. To discover he was the one who had orchestrated her kidnapping, when she had already been imagining him coming to her rescue. “How dare you do this to me? I demand that you escort me and my possessions safely home immediately!”

He gazed down at her, his dark eyes serious, but there was an amused little curve at the corners of his mouth that betrayed the fact that he was struggling mightily not to laugh at her.

“Tess, Tess, you are in no position to demand anything,” he told her, and now there was no merriment playing about his lips at all. “As you have guessed, you are many, many miles away from your home, and only I stand between you and a camp full of very rough hombres indeed.”

She looked beyond him and saw that what he was saying was too awfully true. There must have been a score, at least, of swarthy men in ragged clothing watching this interplay between Parrish and her, and each man looked more dangerous than the one next to him.

“How very comforting,” she fairly spat at him. “And my name, as I told you before, is Miss Hennessy.”

“Miss Hennessy, then,” he said in that musical, accented voice that seemed to caress her senses. “I would set your mind at ease about your parents. They have been left word that you are safe and will be returned unharmed.”

“Unharmed if they raise a ransom, you mean? What sum are you demanding for me? Your men have already taken possession of the fifty dollars I earned from my godfather.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised. “If money was taken from you, it will be returned,” he promised, then called sharply over his shoulder, “Esteban?”