Falling For The Enemy

“We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other for the next little while,” Slade told Hayley Letter to Reader Title Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN Copyright

“We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other for the next little while,” Slade told Hayley

In your dreams, she said silently

“I’ve got to tell you something that will frighten you. But try not to panic, because it isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.”

He hesitated, eyeing her, then continued. “We have your son. He was picked up just a few minutes ago, while he was out riding his bike.”

The world froze around her, and her heart froze inside her chest.

“Max is perfectly safe,” he added quickly. “I swear he is. And I promise he’ll stay that way as long as you cooperate.”

She almost couldn’t hear him over the thunder in her head. She’d never felt such terror before, and when she tried to speak, the words caught in her throat.

“I want my son back,” she whispered fiercely. “Right now... Get him back for me!”

“I can’t. Not—”

“What kind of man are you?” Her entire body trembling, she pushed herself out of her chair and stood glaring across the desk at him. “You’re trying to help a convicted felon plan a prison break? You let his men kidnap an innocent child? Are you a monster?”

Dear Reader,

Have you ever found yourself falling madly and passionately in love with a man you knew was totally wrong for you?

That’s what happens to Hayley Morgan in Falling for the Enemy New Orleans lawyer Slade Reeves has a certain je ne sais quoi that starts her heart beating faster the moment she gazes into the deep blue depths of his eyes.

But once she discovers the truth about him, feeling even a twinge of attraction is out of the question.

Still, have you ever tried to stop yourself from falling in love? Especially when you’re constantly thrown together with the man in question? If so, you know it would be easier to stop a tide from turning.

Hayley and Slade’s story is truly one of love against all odds. I hope you enjoy reading about how they manage to find happiness together

Warmest wishes,

Dawn Stewardson

P.S. I invite you to visit my web site at www.superauthors.com

Falling for the Enemy
Dawn Stewardson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

With special thanks to fellow authors Anne Logan

and Linda Kay West for generously sharing their

knowledge of rural Louisiana

PROLOGUE

MR. WILLIAM FITZGERALD, “Billy Fitz” to his friends, rated one of the “executive suites” at the Poquette Correctional Center in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. That meant he didn’t have to share. He was the sole occupant of a six-by-eight-foot windowless cell.

Despite his privileged status, every morning when Billy woke up he wished he were anywhere else on earth.

The cell walls were cinder-block gray. The sink and seatless toilet, which occupied one open corner, white. At least, he assumed it was the color they’d been before becoming permanently stained putrid yellowish brown.

The bed was concrete, the mattress a slab of foam. The cell door had a slot where a battered food tray was pushed through at mealtimes.

Inmates from the executive suites didn’t eat in the communal dining room. Prisons like Poquette were filled with meltdowns who figured they could make their reputation by killing someone with a big name. That meant living like a hermit was conducive to Billy’s continued good health.

Five days a week, he was allowed to take a shower while a guard stood outside the shower room. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he had an hour in a fenced-off section of the exercise yard. Weather permitting.

He’d been in Poquette for three weeks that seemed like three years. The place was intolerable. Worse for him than for most because of what he was accustomed to—an old mansion in the elegant Garden District of New Orleans, where dinner was served on bone china in his enormous dining room.

In his cell at Poquette, he ate off a dented tin plate with a plastic spoon. No forks allowed.

Billy was fifty-eight years old, and came from long-lived Irish stock. With any luck, he’d see the far side of ninety. He had no intention, though, of seeing it from a prison cell. In fact, he had no intention of seeing fifty-nine from behind bars.

After being convicted on three separate counts of manslaughter, he didn’t have a hope in hell of his appeal going anywhere. But there were other ways for him to regain his freedom, and as head of New Orleans’ “Irish Mafia,” he had both the money and connections to get what he wanted.

All he needed was a little help from his friends. And from Dr. Hayley Morgan.

Until now, he’d never had much use for psychologists. But he certainly had use for her. She was the key. The weak link. A woman with something valuable to lose.

One way or another, she was going to get him out of here. “We’re better off to take things slowly and try the most obvious route first,” his lawyer had advised. “With any luck, she’ll cooperate. Then there’ll be one less problem to worry about.”

Billy didn’t like the prospect of taking things slowly. It meant spending longer in this rat hole. But although he’d never admit it to a living soul, if he’d listened to Sloan Reeves more often he might not have ended up in prison. So he’d listen now and see where it got him.

If Dr. Morgan didn’t cooperate, then they’d use their ace in the hole. Her son.

CHAPTER ONE

HAYLEY MORGAN HEARD Max coming long before he reached the kitchen—hardly surprising when he was doing his imitation of a jet plane breaking the sound barrier.

Satchmo switched his tail a couple of times, then scurried into the sheltered space beside the fridge. He was a smart-enough cat to avoid the paths of small boys in motion.

A second later, Max zoomed into the room, skidded to a stop in front of Hayley and focused on the shorts she was wearing.

“Not goin’ to jail today, huh, Mom?” he said with a grin.

She couldn’t help smiling. He thought his “goin’ to jail” line was hilarious and used it regularly—which was all right as long as he said it to people who knew what her job was. Last fall, though, he’d told his first-grade teacher that his mom was goin’ to jail and for weeks the woman had believed Hayley was incarcerated.

“It’s Saturday,” she reminded him, turning to get the orange juice from the fridge. With school over for the summer, he was finding that the days blended into one another.

As she poured the juice, he sat contemplating the three different cereal boxes she’d put on the table. “Jimmy’s mom got him some real good cereal,” he informed her at last. “It tastes like candy.”

She set the glass of juice in front of him. “Well, call me old-fashioned, but—”

“You’re old-fashioned,” he interrupted, bursting into a fit of giggles.

“Which is why,” she said, ruffling his hair, “I think cereal should taste like cereal.”

Once he’d decided on corn flakes and began shaking some into his bowl, she wandered over to the window.

This early in the morning a cool mist still hung in the air, but by noon the city would be ninety degrees and steamy, reminding residents and tourists alike that much of it was built on reclaimed swampland and lay below sea level.

Yet even in the scorching heat of the summer New Orleans had an appeal she’d never felt anywhere else.

Three years ago, when she and Max had moved here from Pennsylvania, the Crescent City had quickly lulled them with a gentle sense of belonging. And even though New Orleans was far from the safest city for raising a child, this section of the Bayou St. John District had a secure, friendly atmosphere. Children played outside without their parents feeling they had to be watching every minute. And there were enough stay-at-home moms right on their own street that Hayley never had a problem finding someone to look after Max.

She glanced at him, making sure he wasn’t mushing his cereal instead of eating it, then looked out again, this time focusing on the way the sunshine filtered through the branches of the ancient oak in their side yard, backlighting the gray beards of Spanish moss that hung from its branches and dappling the street below in light and shadow.

That century-old tree, perfect for a boy to climb, was part of the reason she’d bought this place. That and the house itself, of course. A scaled-down version of a French-Colonial plantation house, with cypress woodwork and beautiful columned room dividers, it had murmured it was the one for her the first time she’d walked into it.

She turned from the window and, for a few moments, stood watching Max eat his corn flakes. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, he looked like his father. Personality-wise, though, he was completely different—as happy and easygoing a child as any parent could hope for.

He was the single good thing that had come from her failed marriage. She loved him more than she sometimes believed possible.

MONDAY MORNING, SLOAN REEVES was a man on a mission. He had to convince Dr. Hayley Morgan not to make the wrong decision. And he had to do it without telling her even one of the reasons why.

After striding across the lobby of the Orleans Parish state government building, he walked into a waiting elevator and pushed the button for the sixth floor. That was where the regional office of the State Department of Corrections was located, and where he’d find Dr. Morgan, regional director of Mental Health Services for the three state prisons closest to New Orleans—among them, the Poquette Correctional Center.

As the elevator carried him upward, he reviewed what he’d learned about the woman. Her job was partly administrative, partly clinical. She normally spent two days a week in her office and three in the field, giving the prisons’ staff psychologists whatever support or direction they needed. And she’d been known to personally evaluate prisoners who, for one reason or another, warranted special attention.

She was thirty-four, which struck him as young for someone in her position of authority. But having worked closely with the previous regional director, she’d been the logical choice to replace him when he’d retired five months ago.

The elevator reached six; the doors opened. Sloan stepped off, straightened his tie and started down the hallway to his right, not even glancing in the receptionist’s direction.

He knew exactly where Hayley Morgan’s office was located and that, as of late Friday afternoon, she’d had no appointments until ten-thirty this morning. In his line of work, it was wise to check those sorts of things out beforehand and leave as little as possible to chance.

When he stopped outside her doorway, she didn’t immediately realize he was there. She was engrossed in an open file on her desk, so he took the opportunity to appraise her, surprised his source hadn’t mentioned how good-looking she was.

Her plainly styled blue suit was the only plain thing about her. She had smooth, lightly tanned skin, full sensuous lips and hair the color of rich cognac. It was long enough that she was wearing it pulled back into some sort of knot—an attempt, he suspected, to make herself appear both older and less attractive. Being young and good-looking would not be an advantage to a woman working with incarcerated men.

But if she didn’t want them to notice her, she needed to do a whole lot more than just pull back her hair. And even the effectiveness of that was spoiled by the tendrils escaping the knot. If they could speak, he knew that right this minute they’d be whispering “Sexy” to him.

His visual inspection completed, he said, “Excuse me? Dr. Morgan?”

She glanced up then, her large brown eyes meeting his gaze. They were decidedly sexy, as well.

“Yes?” Hayley said, doing a three-second once-over of the man with the lazy Louisiana drawl.

In his mid-to-late thirties, he was well dressed, tall and attractive, with dark hair, an easy smile and eyes a deeper blue than Gulf waters on a sunny day. As he stepped into her office, she couldn’t help thinking they were the kind of eyes women found themselves drowning in if they weren’t careful. And sometimes, she suspected, even if they were.

“I’m Sloan Reeves,” he said, extending his hand across the desk. “May I have a few minutes of your time?”

His hand was warm, his handshake firm but not crushing, and she was absurdly aware of his touch.

When that realization skittered through her mind, she told herself it meant nothing. Her hormones were simply reminding her she was a woman.

That wasn’t something she exactly forgot, but between her job and Max, she seldom had time to notice men.

Checking her desk clock, she said, “I have a meeting in twenty minutes, but if you don’t need any longer than that...”

“I doubt I’ll need even that.” He took a business card from his wallet and handed it to her as he sat down.

Sloan Reeves, Attorney at Law, it informed her.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” he said. “I’m here on behalf of William Fitzgerald.”

“Oh?” And what, she wondered, did the newest executive-suite prisoner at Poquette want from her?

When she asked, Reeves flashed her another easy smile, then said, “Well, first off, I hope you won’t take any personal offense, but he isn’t happy he was sent to Poquette.”

“Really.”

She did her best to conceal her amusement. Fitzgerald should be grateful one of the smaller prisons had had space available for an inmate requiring protective custody. Otherwise he’d have ended up in Angola.

“What, specifically, does he find wrong with Poquette?”

Sloan Reeves leaned forward in his chair. “He’s being kept in virtual isolation.”

Reeves had to be aware of the reason for that, but since he was apparently waiting for an explanation, she said, “Surely he realizes it’s for his own safety. The prison staff can’t assign... celebrity prisoners, for lack of a better term, to the general population cell blocks.”

“No, of course not. But we both know isolation is brutal. That it almost always leads to deterioration—mental or physical or both.”

“You’re right, it’s far from ideal. I’m afraid there’s no magic solution, though. Even if Mr. Fitzgerald qualified for a minimum-security facility, we don’t have country-club prisons in Louisiana. He’d be segregated no matter where he was.”

Reeves nodded slowly. “I guess the basic problem is that he’s a very sociable man. He finds the lack of human interaction difficult to cope with.”

Rather than respond to that, Hayley merely gazed across her desk at Reeves. He was falling short on his promise to come straight to the point, because he couldn’t possibly be suggesting that Fitzgerald wanted to be moved into general pop. Not unless he’d like to end up graveyard dead, courtesy of some inmate with a shiv.

After a few seconds, she checked her clock again, assuming Reeves would get the message. He did.

“Here’s the bottom line. Mr. Fitzgerald wants to be transferred to a prison with a rehabilitation program. Being in one of them would give him both human contact and something to occupy his mind. And inmates in a rehab program shouldn’t be a threat to his safety.”

“I see,” she said again, still trying to figure out the game. Reeves wasn’t being straight with her, she knew that much.

The prison psychologists did a psych assessment on each new prisoner, and she’d read her copy of the one on Fitzgerald. He didn’t believe he belonged locked up with a bunch of low-lifes. So even if he did want more human contact, she wasn’t buying that he’d want it with his fellow prisoners.

As for a rehab program to occupy his mind, it would more likely bore him to death. Besides which, he wasn’t an even remotely viable candidate. The programs were strictly for prisoners nearing the end of their sentences, and she’d bet Reeves knew that. All of which added up to a hidden agenda of some sort.

Since she had a meeting to get to, she didn’t probe Fitzgerald’s motivations further but simply said, “You know, I rarely have anything to do with transfers. The person you should talk to is Warden Armstrong, at Poquette.”

“Yes—in fact I have an appointment with him this afternoon to file the request forms. But I wanted to let you know I’ll be asking him to have you do the mental-health assessment.”

“Oh?” That news made her more concerned about what the hidden agenda might be.

“It is something you occasionally do, isn’t it? Some of the mandatory evaluations? In this case, give your opinion about whether a transfer might benefit Mr. Fitzgerald?”

She nodded. Obviously Reeves had done his homework, and it had included checking into her job description. The realization unsettled her. She didn’t like having a stranger poke around for information about her.

“The staff psychologists at Poquette are more than competent,” she told him. “Why would you request that I assess Mr. Fitzgerald?”

“Because of your position. Because your signature on a transfer recommendation would carry more weight.”

“You’re assuming I’d recommend it.”

“I’m hoping you will.”

“Well... Look, there’s a fundamental problem here. The rehab programs are solely for prisoners close to their release dates, and with Mr. Fitzgerald not meeting that criterion...”

Reeves gave her a slow shrug. “I think I’ll be able to get around that by emphasizing his need for more human contact. You see, the way I look at it, there’s an Eighth Amendment violation involved.”

“A what?”

“I feel that his being kept in isolation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

Hayley almost groaned. Sloan Reeves had things figured upside down and inside out.

“After you’ve talked with Mr. Fitzgerald,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll recommend a change of scenery to improve his mental health. If you don’t... Well, I’m sure you will.” With that, he leaned back and smiled at her once more.

It was a warm smile that reached his eyes and turned them an impossibly deeper shade of blue, a smile that under different circumstances she knew she’d have found both engaging and appealing. Under these circumstances, she found it neither.

Maybe her overdeveloped sense of fair play was coming to the fore, but she didn’t want to be involved in any attempt to manipulate the system.

And there was something else, of course. She was annoyed as hell at the way this man had walked in unannounced and told her what she was going to recommend.

THERE WASN’T a law firm’s name on Sloan Reeves’s business card, and several times during her ten-thirty meeting Hayley caught herself wondering whether he had a one-man practice. And whether he specialized in representing clients who were unquestionably guilty. The minute she got back to her office she phoned Peggy Fournier, a detective with the New Orleans Police Department, to find out.

A couple of years ago, Hayley had helped Peggy talk a jumper in off a ledge. During the aftermath, the two women had established that they were both single mothers with young boys. In no time, their sons were buddies, while she and Peggy became the sort of friends who were always trading favors.

If Peggy didn’t recognize Sloan Reeves’s name, locating someone who did wouldn’t take much effort. Since he was representing Billy Fitzgerald, three-quarters of the cops in the city could probably fill her in about him.

When Peggy proved to be on duty but not in the station, Hayley left a message. Then she grabbed a salad from the cafeteria downstairs, took it back to her office and spent the next hour reviewing every last detail in the Poquette psychologist’s intake assessment of Billy Fitzgerald.

He and his wife had divorced long ago, and she’d given him custody of their sole child, a son named Brendan, without an argument. According to Billy, at least. The wife’s version of the story would probably be very different. Something like, if she hadn’t given Billy custody he would have killed her.

His psychological profile, as Hayley had noted during her first reading of it, showed him to be a charming, highly intelligent, extremely manipulative psychopath.

Deciding she had as accurate a read on him as she could get from the file, she set it aside and started in on some backed-up paperwork while she waited for Peggy to return her call. It was close to four o’clock before she did.

“Sloan Reeves?” Peggy said when Hayley asked about him. “Good-looking? Smart enough to win on Jeopardy? Sets the ladies’ hearts aflutter with his smile? That Sloan Reeves?”

“Well, he hardly set my heart aflutter.”

Even as Hayley said the words, an imaginary voice reminded her that the touch of his hand on hers had sent a definite tingle through her. But that was before she’d known anything about him.

“It was more like he set my teeth on edge,” she told Peggy. “But yes, I’d say we’re talking about the same man.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“He walked into my office this morning and informed me that Billy Fitzgerald didn’t like his accommodations.”

Peggy laughed. “Well, Reeves should know. He’s the only lawyer in town with a client list of one. Or I guess it’s two at this point. We might have put Billy away, but so far it hasn’t stopped him from running the Irish Mafia. He’s just doing it through his son, Brendan, now. And I guess that means Reeves is acting as legal adviser to both of them.”

“Wait a minute, are you serious?”

“Hey, the world changes and the wise guys keep up. They’ve got legal advisers, financial advisers, certified public accountants—you name it.”

“Reeves works exclusively for Billy Fitzgerald?”

“I take it he didn’t mention this.”

“No, he didn’t.” And the fact that he was so close to Fitzgerald’s organized crime family—more like part of it, really, than close—made Hayley uneasier still about his visit.

She did her best to force the uneasiness away as Peggy continued.

“What a waste, huh? If he really did set your teeth on edge, you’re one of the few women in the city with that reaction. He’d probably get voted Most Eligible Bachelor in New Orleans if he wasn’t in bed with the bad guys. What exactly did he want?”

The question made Hayley hesitate. Sometimes, in her job, there was a fine line between what was confidential and what wasn’t. Still, she trusted Peggy, and she definitely wanted her take on the situation.

“He came to tell me,” she finally said, “that Fitzgerald is looking to transfer to a different prison.”

“Why?”

“The story is so that he can be in a rehab program.”

“What? They aren’t for lifers, are they?”

“No, and it gets better. Fitzgerald supposedly wants into one for the social contact.”

“Oh, puh-leeze. Like he wants to socialize with his fellow cons?”

Hayley almost smiled. Thus far, Peggy’s take was exactly the same as her own.

“I’m sure the real story is that, for some reason or other, Fitzgerald’s determined to get out of Poquette.”

“And you don’t know why?”

“No, but they had to come up with some explanation for a transfer request.”

“They came up with a pretty lame one. I wonder what Fitzgerald’s problem with the place is.”

“Me, too. But my problem is that they’re involving me in their game. A psychologist has to evaluate a prisoner’s mental health when he requests a transfer, and—”

“It’s going to be you, right?”

“Exactly. And Reeves is expecting me to recommend the transfer.”

“He said that?”

“He didn’t come right out and say ‘expecting,’ but there was no missing the message.”

Peggy was silent for a few seconds, then she said, “Does that have you worried?”

“I...yes, a little, now that you tell me he has friends in low places. But the final decision is the warden’s, not mine. I only give him my recommendation. And neither Fitzgerald nor Reeves will know what it is. So if the request’s turned down, which I’m certain it will be, they’ll have no way of knowing whether I—”

“Oh, Hayley, don’t play naive with me. Guys like those two can find out anything they want and you know it.”

“Maybe. But this isn’t the first time I’ve faced a little... subtle intimidation, shall we call it?”

“I could think of better terms,” Peggy muttered.

“Well, when you work with criminals this kind of thing comes with the territory, right? As a cop, you must see that all the time. I’ve never let anyone frighten me out of doing my job yet, however, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Yes, of course. I only... Well, this is a red-tape sort of thing, anyway, isn’t it. It’ll be forever before you have to assess Fitzgerald, so we can talk about it the next time we get together. But...”

“But what?” Hayley said uneasily.

“Look, I don’t think Reeves would get physical himself. Billy Fitz, on the other hand, has more than enough boys who play as rough as it takes. So if the good counselor pays you another visit I want you to call me.”

Once Hayley had promised that if Reeves showed up again Peggy would be the first to know, they chatted about their sons for a few minutes before hanging up.

It wasn’t ten seconds later that the phone rang again.

“Dr. Morgan,” Hayley said, answering it.

“Dr. Morgan, it’s Warden Armstrong at Poquette.”

“Yes, Warden?” A dryness settled in her throat. She had absolutely no doubt what he was calling about.

“You’ll be here in the morning, won’t you?”

“Yes. Tuesday’s my regular day.”

“Good, because Billy Fitzgerald’s filed an application for a transfer and he’s asked that you do the psych assessment. I want to give him a quick decision, so I’d like you to work the evaluation into your schedule tomorrow.”