Most people hate Mondays.

Not me. I see them as portals to untold prospects, gateways to golden opportunities, pristine canvasses awaiting bold splashes of color. And this particular Monday seemed to epitomize all that was good about them. Robins warbled merrily in the maples along Franklin Street; a warm June sun glinted off the hood of my vintage 1960 yellow Corvette convertible; and I had nabbed a prime parking space right across the street from my shop.

Slinging my bag over one shoulder, I climbed out of the car, pulled off my tortoise shell sunglasses and regarded the wooden sign mounted above the door of the old red brick building.

BLOOMERS

Every time I saw it, a thrill of pride raced through me. Me, Abby Knight, an entrepreneur! Penniless, perhaps, yet soundly devoted to my new profession. Who would have guessed when I flunked out of law school a year ago that I’d be standing here today in front of my own flower shop? Certainly not my parents, who are still shell-shocked.

I locked the car door and gave the Vette an affectionate pat before pocketing the keys. This car was my baby. I loved it with a passion I normally reserved for fine dark chocolate, or a bathing suit that actually fit. It was a four-on-the-floor with a black ragtop roof, black leather seats that were cracked from age and wear, and a slightly scratched chrome-and-black dashboard. Originally, beneath a thick coat of grime and bird droppings, the body color had been white. Now, with its two-week-old paint job, the car was a bright, cheery banana yellow, my favorite color.

Hovering like a proud mother, I flicked a leaf off the hood and polished away a stray fingerprint with the hem of my white blouse. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a man race  from the alley between two buildings and hop into a black monster of an SUV parked in front of the Vette. I thought nothing of it until he gunned the motor, then I looked up in surprise as he threw the vehicle into reverse and backed into my car’s front end. WHAM!

I stood in the street with mouth agape, as visions of the precious dollars I had just spent on the car winged fiendishly past. The SUV took off with a squeal of tires.

“Sixty-four Apple David three — damn it!” He was too fast. I didn’t have a chance to catch the whole license plate number.

“You’re leaving the scene of an accident,” I shouted, shaking my fist at him as he sped away. “Come back here, coward!” He had his windows down; I knew he heard me.

“Go get `em, honey,” someone called from a city van. A tow truck driver honked his horn and gave me a thumbs up.

I found a pen and scribbled the numbers on the back of my hand, then crouched in front of my car to inspect the damage. My stomach lurched at the horrible sight: shattered double headlights, dented chrome grill and hood. I stood up and glared in the direction he had gone. There was no way I would let an irresponsible moron get away with a hit-and-run on my car. No. Way. I hadn’t grown up as the daughter of a cop for nothing, not to mention that if my insurance payments went up, I’d go broke.

As I dug in my purse for my cell phone, one of the warbling robins flew over and deposited a big white blob of bird poop on the trunk. With a shudder, I turned my back on the scene of the crime and called the police dispatcher, who promised to send someone out as soon as possible. My assistant Lottie Dombowski was watching me through BLOOMERS’ window, a look of horror on her face. I signaled back to let her know I had everything under control.

This was not the colorful start I’d had in mind.

Lottie had to unlock the door for me since I was too rattled to find my keys and the shop didn’t open for another hour. She was dressed in her usual summer get-up – bright pink loafers, white denims that fit her size fourteen body a little too snugly, a pink blouse that gaped where it stretched across her ample bosom, and a pink satin bow snuggled into the brassy curls above her left ear Shirley Temple style -- not exactly a trendy hairdo for the mother of seventeen-year-old quadruplets, but try to tell her that and she will hand you a hair dryer and tell you to knock yourself out. After raising those four boys, nothing fazed Lottie.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked, looking me over from my shoulder-length bob to my open-toed black mules. “I saw that pond scum ram you.”

“I’m fine, just angry is all.”

“He was in some hurry, wasn’t he? Come on back. I’m making breakfast.”

Cooking was just one of Lottie’s abilities. Besides being a true genius at floral design, she was also the one who put me on to my Corvette. And she knew just about everyone on the New Chapel town square -- a boon to any business person, especially a novice like me.

I had met Lottie during the period of my fateful engagement to Pryce Osborne the Second,  when she owned BLOOMERS and  I made deliveries for her -- in between clerking for a lawyer. Holding two jobs was the only way I could afford law school. My grandfather’s trust had covered my undergraduate expenses at Indiana University, a state college, but had not been enough to pay for three years of law school, even a local one where I could live at home.

But it had been enough for a minimal down payment on a quaint flower shop in a small Midwestern college town.

New Chapel, Indiana, was typical in that regard, tolerating the students that flocked to the cheap eateries, coffee houses, and dollar stores during the school year, and bemoaning their absence during the summer months. The town square had the regulation limestone courthouse set amid a huge expanse of lawn, with a tall spire and huge clock face that proclaimed it ten minutes after four regardless of the real time, along with the standard compliment of family owned restaurants, shops and businesses flanking the courthouse square on all sides...