The Outlaw's Lady

“Of course, Uncle Samuel.” Tess took one last, fleeting glance at the object of the Dupree girls’ attention. The stranger had paused to accept a drink from a tray proffered by a servant, and was now lifting it to his mouth as he continued to look in their direction.

Had he seen her staring right along with the giddy Dupree girls? Tess ducked under the canvas with the same feeling a mouse must have as it darts into a hole to escape the scrutiny of a hungry hawk. Half a minute later, she had completed the exposure.

“I’m done now. You are free to move,” she said, coming back out from under her cover. She watched the Dupree girls stroll away, their bustles swaying as they each took one last, longing look over their shoulders. Apparently they had lost their nerve and weren’t bold enough to stay and hold Taylor to his promise of an introduction.

Tess wondered if the stranger was still standing where he had been, but she was much too busy now to look at him again. Carefully, she removed the glass photography plate from the camera and strode over to where her wagon stood parked in the shelter of three shady live oaks. Her darkroom while at a job consisted of a larger, dark canvas tent stretched over the square, shallow bed of the wagon, in which sat the developing bath. She had only ten minutes to develop the picture or the collodion in the plate would no longer be wet, and her efforts would have been in vain.

Tess wished Francisco, her assistant in the shop, could have come to the barbecue today to take care of the preparation of the collodion plates and the developing while she took the pictures so she could be done sooner. But he had told her he had to help his father today. She straightened her shoulders, reminding herself that Uncle James had often worked alone to photograph the aftermath of battles during the war. Whatever he had done in the hardship of the battlefield, she could certainly do at a barbecue.

“Tess, can you come out for a minute? There’s someone here who’d like to meet you,” Sam Taylor said, just after she had gone into the developing tent.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t right now, Uncle Samuel,” Tess said, staying under the tent and using her metal dippers to lower the undeveloped picture into the dipping bath. “If I don’t bathe this photograph right now, then hang it up to dry, the picture will be ruined. I’ll have to be in here for a few minutes, I’m afraid. Why don’t I find you when I’m done, before I start posing another photograph?”

Idly, she wondered who it was her godfather wanted her to meet. She feared her mother had infected him with her anxiety about the possibility of her daughter’s spinster-hood. Tess hoped he was not trying his hand at matchmaking.

She heard a rich chuckle outside the tent. “Well, if the picture needs a bath, it needs a bath,” an unfamiliar voice drawled. The voice was deep and accented in such a way to suggest that while Spanish was the speaker’s first language, he was equally fluent in English. For a moment, she was curious about the possessor of such a voice. Then, when she heard nothing more, she assumed the men had taken her at her word and moved off. She had work to do, Tess reminded herself, and in the shadows of the dark canvas tent, she concentrated on producing the best image she could.

Minutes later, the photograph laid out on cloth and pinned into place so it could dry next to the others she had taken, Tess backed out of the tent. Before she left the party, she would have to brush a coat of varnish over the images to fix and protect them from the dust and moisture, but that could wait until all the images were dry.

“Ah, there she is, our lady daguerreotypist,” Sam announced as she emerged.

Tess blinked, her eyes momentarily blinded by the brilliant sunlight after the semi-darkness of the tent. As her eyes adjusted to the afternoon light, her jaw fell open.

“Oh—it’s you!” she said, before she could think.

Chapter Two

He watched with great interest as Tess Hennessy’s lovely oval face went pale, then flamed as she realized what she had said.

“I—I mean, I didn’t think y’all were going to wait right here!” One hand self-consciously flew to smooth her hair, which was coming down after brushing the overhead canvas too many times. Her gaze fled to Samuel Taylor, standing next to him.

Taylor stepped forward. “Tess, I’d like to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Sandoval Parrish. That is to say, he’s not old, but our friendship is. Sandoval, Miss Teresa Hennessy, youngest child of Patrick Hennessy, my good friend who owns the land next to ours. I’m her godfather.”

Parrish saw Tess blink as she heard his name. Sandoval, she would be thinking, a Spanish name, yet his last name sounds Anglo.

“I am pleased to meet you, Miss Hennessy,” he said, and remembering that Anglo women thought hand kissing too forward, offered his hand instead. “My given name is from my Mexican mother. My surname, as well as my height, is from my father, who was an Anglo.”

She colored again as if embarrassed that he had guessed her thoughts. “I see, Mr. Parrish. But you haven’t taken your mother’s name, too, as I understand most Mexicans do?”

He smiled, pleased that she knew of the custom. “Yes, my full name is Sandoval Parrish y Morelos, but it’s much too big a mouthful, at least on this side of the border.”

“And on which side of the border do you live, Mr. Parrish?” she asked.

Parrish cleared his throat. “I have ranch property on both sides of the river, Miss Hennessy, inherited from each side of the family.”

He watched her eyes narrow at his noncommittal answer. She probably thought he was one of the many Tejanos, Texans of Mexican heritage, whose larger allegiance lay with Mexico. When it came to the test, Anglo Texans didn’t trust them.

Ah well, it was a pity she seemed to feel that way, but maybe it was better. He hadn’t known he would find the lady photographer so interesting, but if she didn’t share the feeling, he could carry out his plan without distraction.

His suspicion was confirmed when she took a step back and said, “It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Parrish, but perhaps I’d better get back to my job. There were several other guests who wanted their photographs taken before I leave today.”

Now Taylor took a quick step forward. “Now, Tess, I didn’t mean for this barbecue to be all work and no play for you! The party ain’t half over, so there’s plenty of time for you to get to know Sandoval a little better. Why not let him get you some lemonade and y’all go sit down in the shade and get acquainted?”

“I…I really should do what you hired me to do before I stop to enjoy myself, Uncle Samuel,” Tess protested, “or I can’t take the fee we agreed upon.” She pulled a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of her skirt and brandished it at her uncle, almost as if it were a weapon. “There are still several names on my list….”

“Actually, I was interested in having a photograph taken myself, Miss Hennessy,” Sandoval said suddenly, “if you think you would have time today. If not, I could perhaps make time to come to the shop Sam tells me you have in town,” he offered. “It would be a present to my mother, whose birthday is coming soon.”

She hesitated.

“Who’s next on that list?” Sam demanded, grabbing the paper away from her with the boldness only an old family friend could get away with. “Ah, Sissy Dawson. Why, she’s much too busy flirtin’ with Fred Yancy’s youngest pup to be bothered sittin’ still right now,” he said, jerking his head in the aforementioned Sissy’s direction. Just as he had said, Sissy was giggling and fluttering her eyelashes at a young man who looked utterly captivated by her antics. “Why don’t you take Sandoval’s picture right now?”

Her eyes darted to Sandoval, then back to her godfather. There was no way she could politely refuse. “I…I suppose I could do that,” she said at last. “Very well, Mr. Parrish, please make yourself comfortable on that chair and I’ll just prepare another collodion plate…”

“Tess, Lula Marie’s motionin’ for me to come over and meet somebody,” Taylor said, “so I’ll just leave you two together. Make Sandoval look handsome, mind—his mama thinks he is, and nothing I could tell her will convince her otherwise,” he added with a chuckle, giving them a last wave as he strode away.

Tess started after his departing figure with obvious dismay.

“Relax, Miss Hennessy, I do not bite,” Sandoval assured her, amused.

She stared at him, her lapis lazuli-blue eyes widening. “I never thought that you did,” she began, but he interrupted her before she could deny it further.

“I will cooperate fully, better than any of your other subjects today, so you will be rid of me in half the time.”

He enjoyed the flash of amusement that curved her lips upward. He liked the way her lower lip was fuller than the other, and the way she was biting it just now with straight white teeth as if to hold back a laugh. He wanted to make her laugh some more.

“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?”