ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CHAPTER ONE Monday I used to like Monday mornings. They were the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, revving up my enthusiasm for the challenges of the week ahead, or the starting pistol at the horse races, sending me out of the gate with a burst of energy, ready to run the course no matter how much mud was on the track. Sadly, those days were over, a fading vision in my rearview mirror, a reminder that life is ever changing--and not always for the better. And it wasn''t only the beginning of the week that fate had fumbled. It was every morning of every day. Every. Day. This morning was a prime example.

I''d risen at seven o''clock, showered, put on mascara, a little blush, skipped the concealer--nothing covered my freckles--and tamed the red beast that many called my hair. Marco had already walked our rescue dog, Seedy, and brought me a cup of coffee laced with half-and-half, just the way I liked it. After seven months of marriage, this small token of love still amazed me. Then we''d proceeded to the kitchen for breakfast. The Olympic torch had barely been lit when its bright flame began to flicker. * * * The previous September I had become Abigail Knight Salvare, wife of Marco Salvare, the former Army Ranger/current owner of Down the Hatch Bar and Grill and the sexiest man in town. He had dark hair, soulful brown eyes, a strong jaw, an olive complexion with a faint five-o''clock shadow, muscular arms, and trim hips--honestly, he could have been a cover model for GQ . What he saw in a busty, five-foot-two, Irish-tempered redhead was a mystery to me.

In addition to being Marco''s wife, I was the owner of Bloomers Flower Shop, located on the square in New Chapel, Indiana. I had also recently become Marco''s partner in the Salvare Detective Agency, and together we had helped solve sixteen murder cases. There was a lot on my plate, but I loved it all. Then, after several long months of being crammed into Marco''s bachelor pad, and with his lease up for renewal, we''d embarked on a laborious and tangled house hunt. By "laborious" I mean that my cousin Jillian went into false labor three times while assisting us with the hunt, and by "tangled" I mean that we got ourselves into quite a knot of a murder investigation. Thanks to my budding sleuthing skills, the murder case had been resolved, but not the house hunt. So we''d decided to build. Because of that decision, we needed to save money and find a temporary place to live, so-- deep breath, Abby --we''d moved in with my parents.

To be honest, I wasn''t in favor of it, but they''d insisted, and Marco had accepted for both of us, something I believed he had come to regret. In any case, we were now ensconced in my childhood bedroom, still painted screaming yellow with purple accents and decorated with plaster of paris handprints I made in kindergarten, a silhouette of my ten-year-old head, framed awards for perfect attendance (the only awards I''d ever received), and posters of my favorite childhood movies. Basically, I was living in a flashback. Now the room that had once been my punishment--as in, "Go to your room, young lady--you are grounded!"--had become my sanctuary. It was the only place in the house where Marco and I had any privacy, and even then, we had our little Seedy packed in with us. In my parents'' kitchen, which was spacious enough for a long, farm-style table and eight chairs, Marco made oatmeal for himself and I had a second cup of coffee. I never ate at home on Mondays because my assistant, Lottie, always served up her famous skillet breakfast at Bloomers that day. We were joined in short order by my mom, Maureen "Mad Mo" Knight, a kindergarten teacher and weekend artist who managed her household with the same firm hand with which she ran her classroom.

This morning, Mom had made a new dish involving eggs, tomatoes, something, and something for herself and Dad, and now she insisted I eat it. I told her up front I didn''t want any, and she knew very well why. Even so, a battle of wills ensued, with my mother maintaining that I was not getting out of the house without trying her omelet. The stalemate was broken by my dad, who had rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen to eat breakfast and instead found himself initiating what amounted to hostage negotiations, one of Dad''s areas of expertise. "Take a seat, Maureen," he began, scooting out a chair for her. "Right here, across from your daughter." My father, Sergeant Jeffrey Knight, had been a cop for twenty years before a drug dealer''s bullet blew a hole through his leg and landed him in the hospital. Then surgery to remove the bullet caused a partial paralysis of his legs that confined him mostly to the wheelchair.

He''d retired from the force soon after, but he would always and forever be a cop. Thus the negotiations. "Now, Mo," Dad said, one hand on her shoulder, "you know Abracadabra has breakfast at Bloomers on Mondays, right?" This got a reluctant yes from my mother. I suspected he had used my childhood nickname to remind Mom of the adorable cherub I had once been. I think she and I would have agreed that was a debatable point. "And, Ab, you know that all you have to do is eat a few forkfuls to make Mom happy, right?" I shrugged, indicating ambivalence. Bad move on my part. Dad was looking for total capitulation.

"Come on, Abby," he said. "You know your mother is only acting in your best interests." "Yes, Dad, I know that." I glanced at Marco, seated across the table from me, and rolled my eyes. He shook his head as though to say, Nope. I''m out of it. "Now, who is willing to compromise here so we can move on to a pleasant topic of conversation?" Dad asked. Not me.

I wasn''t about to give in. That was just what Mom wanted. Wait, what had I just said? A shiver raced up my spine. Dear God, it''s like I never moved away from home. It was as though the years after high school graduation, through college, through my failed attempt at law school, through two years of owning Bloomers, had vanished once I''d stepped back into my old bedroom. I had to get that new house built fast. "This is my last word on the subject, Abigail," Mom said. "A little protein will make you feel better until you can have breakfast at Bloomers.

You know how you crash and burn when you''re overly hungry." "I''ll be fine," I said, then sipped my coffee. Marco finished his oatmeal silently, his gaze seeking out the clock on the wall. At that point Dad began his new ritual wherein he read aloud articles from the morning newspaper. "Here''s something for you, Abracadabra," he said, and began reading. I rolled my eyes at Marco again and pulled out my cell phone, ostensibly to check messages but actually to play a game so I could tune Dad out. My phone rang in the middle of my losing the game, so I paused to check the screen and noticed that Mom and Dad were both waiting to hear who my caller was. "Just Jillian," I said, then left the room to take the call.

My cousin Jillian was the unbearably proud mother of a one-month-old baby girl named Harper Abigail Lynne Osborne, whose initials by no coincidence spelled HALO . The child was Jillian''s little angel and even had a "halo" of white seed pearls that Jillian put on her tiny head like a sweatband every time a photo op presented itself. I couldn''t very well complain, however, since Jillian had chosen Harper''s middle name as a tribute to me, the loyal cousin who''d stuck by crazy Jillian through thick and thin. And while I appreciated her having a healthy, adorable baby, it seemed a little too early in the game to declare presidential aspirations for Harper. "Abs, you won''t believe what Harper did," Jillian said. This was her daily mantra, and I was tired of it. "Let me guess. She woke up, nursed, pooped, and went back to sleep.

" Seriously, what else did month-old babies do? I tuned Jillian out, too. Fifteen minutes later, Marco and I broke free and headed for the town square in my refurbished banana yellow 1960 Corvette. I''d gotten the car for a steal after it had been found languishing in a barn under a huge collection of junk. When the farmer who owned the property died, the family had wanted to get rid of everything, making the sporty little car totally affordable for an impoverished law school flunk-out. The poor ''Vette had been horribly mistreated, but a good paint job had fixed most of that. Had it been my choice, I would have been the one driving, something I loved passionately. But Marco always got behind the wheel first, so I had to let it go because I loved him more passionately. I also would have cranked up the volume on the radio and sung along, ragtop down, wind blowing my hair, feeling as free as a cloud in the sky, but I felt self-conscious with Marco there.

I decided to stay mum about it, however, since his green Prius had been totaled just a month earlier while he was trying to save me from a killer. He hadn''t bought another vehicle yet because he was certain we could save money by carpooling. He parked in a public lot a block off the square and we walked to Franklin Street, where both of us had businesses. Seedy hobbled happily along with us, pausing as we stopped midway between our shops for a kiss. "Dinner at the bar after work?" Marco asked, brushing a strand of hair off my face. "You bet. And maybe we should start having breakfast out, too." "Your parents aren''t that bad, Sunshine.

" "Marco, do you really like having someone read the paper to you? Or insist you eat their food when you''re not even hungry?" "You''re always.