Sealed With A Kiss. Kristin Hardy

to mention sexy as hell. I seem to remember something about a payment due, by the way.”

      “Payment?” she echoed innocently.

      “If I don’t get it, I’m going to have to send you to collections,” he warned.

      Joss smiled. “Well, then, I guess I’d better pay up.”

      6

      THE CHERUBS SMILED at her, golden-haired and rosy-cheeked, their bellies coquettishly round. Hanging on the wall over her head, their lively faces stared out, not at Joss, but at the sailing ship behind her, the enormous relic of a bygone age, the ornately carved king’s folly that hadn’t even made it out of the harbor before capsizing centuries before.

      It was hard to say what was more extraordinary, Joss thought, the fact that for over two centuries people had forgotten where the Vasa warship lay, just a few hundred yards from the bustling waterfront, or the fact that the ship had been rediscovered and brought up to the surface nearly intact.

      When she’d capsized, the sailors on the Vasa must have prayed to God for salvation. Now, the vessel was ensconced in a temple of its own, a soaring building of soft light designed to protect and display the ripe and luscious lines of a sailing ship that barely sailed.