Siren's Surrender by Devyn Quinn

probably give everyone a good grilling. All she could hope was Addison wouldn’t open her mouth and insert her big foot. She could practically hear the headlines blaring on the nightly news: MERMAIDS DISCOVERED IN PORT ROCK, MAINE. If anyone was going to out their kind, it would definitely be Addison.
    “That little twit has to ruin everything,” she muttered, following her sister and Whittaker toward the house.
    As for that meal he’d offered to buy her . . .
    Gwen had a feeling she wasn’t getting it.
     
     
    The only pictures Blake had seen of Little Mer Island had shown a lighthouse perched beside a rundown Cape Cod-style house. The lighthouse still stood in its place, keeping its unblinking watch over the open sea. The main house, however, had changed. A lot. Even from a quarter-mile distance, he could see the dwelling had morphed from simple to elaborate, tripling in size.
    Blake shook his head. The intelligence report he’d received apparently wasn’t the most current. He rolled his eyes. Damn. How could they not be informed about all the freaking construction? With satellite technology that could capture the image of a license plate on a car, they shouldn’t have missed the massive construction activity. Hell, they could have found this with Google Earth.
    He sighed. “Fucking budget cuts,” he muttered under his breath. Not to mention short staffing. Since 9/11, hundreds of agents had been transferred into counter-terrorism operations, leaving dozens of positions unfilled. Even the A51 division was feeling the pain of the gutting.
    “Did you say something, Agent Whittaker?” Gwen asked.
    Blake shook his head. “Just admiring the construction.”
    “Quite a lot of it going on lately,” she agreed. “Kenneth seems to have been bitten by the building bug.”
    Blake combed through his mental notes. He knew Kenneth Randall was loaded, the widower of Jennifer Marsham, heiress to the Marsham Investments firm in New York.
    He also knew Randall had inherited quite a chunk of change after Jennifer Marsham was gunned down in a carjacking. Her grief-stricken parents had even gone so far as to accuse Randall of hiring someone to kill their daughter so he could get his hands on her money.
    Their accusations were for naught. No connection was ever found between Randall and the shooter. Jennifer Marsham’s death was a random occurrence, nothing more.
    Whatever his story, no one could accuse Randall of greed. He’d practically rebuilt the house from the ground up. The small, cozy home had turned into a larger, cozier home. Two more cozy little cottages were being built nearby.
    Addison noticed his twice-over. She pointed at one partially built home. “Mine.” She grinned and pointed to the other. “And that will be Gwen’s house.” She winked. “For when we get married and move home with our husbands.”
    Blake nodded. “Nice.”
    Addison eyed his left hand. “You married?”
    That was easy enough to answer. “Nope.”
    “Dating?”
    No hesitation. “Nope.”
    “Looking?” she asked hopefully.
    Blake shook his head. “Nope.” Damn. She was good at prying. She’d just gotten his whole sorry relationship status in three questions. The bureau could use a sharp little cookie like her.
    Truth be told, he wasn’t serious about looking for a new lover. Once their biological clocks began to tick, most women wanted to put flings behind them and settle down. Blake had already had a taste of settling down and it hadn’t agreed with him one bit. A little over four years ago he’d even tried shacking up with a woman.
    He frowned. What a disaster. The only good thing to come out of that mess was his son, Trevor.
    Gwen interrupted her sister’s grilling. “Stop it with the third degree, already,” she warned. “His life is not your business.”
    Addison grinned, revealing a cute little gap between her teeth. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, she also sported a set of wicked bad tattoos that started at her