"How was it?" she asked with a grimace.

Peter knew she was talking of the funeral. She hadn't gone, hadn't known Mara.

He had worked hard to keep it that way. "Not bad."

Sad?"

"All funerals are. The turnout was surprisingly good," he said, though in truth he hadn't been surprised at all. Mara had been active enough in town to have touched the lives of nearly everyone there. What had surprised him was the high level of emotion, particuarly given the way she had died. He would have thought there would be resentment even anger, at her desertion. Instead the damned place had reeked of love.

"How were her parents?" Lacey asked.

He released his suspender with a snap. "I told them the usual, how good Mara was with her patients. They nodded stoically. Then I thought I'd be a good guy and tell them how fiercely she fought for what she believed in.

Bad move. They don't appreciate spunk. They wanted her to be a sweet little thing with a husband and babies." He laughed. "Can you imagine it? That's the last thing Mara could ever have been."

"Why so?"

"She couldn't sit still, for one thing, had to be always moving, always doing something. And she was bullheaded. No way should Mara have ever taken a marriage vow promising to love and obey. She couldn't obey anyone. It was against her nature."

"She was married?"

"Once. Before she came to Tucker. But she blew it. The guy OD'd.

Lucky for her there weren't any kids. She would've had trouble with them, too. Mara was spread too thin.

That's why the foster child thing blew up in her face. She was too involved with too many things to do any of them well. Hard to believe she was actually thinking of adopting" Lacey ordered a glass of wine.

The waitress had no sooner left than, curiously, she asked, "Why did you hate her?"

He was startled. "I didn't."

"Then, dislike her?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Your tone of voice. The way your jaw is clenched."

He stared. "Since when are you an expert on my moods?"

"No expert. Just an observer."

"I won't be psychoanalyzed, Lacey."

"I'm not psychoanalyzing you. I'm simply saying that it sounds like you had a problem with Mara O'Neill."

"And I'm saying I didn't," he insisted. Image was everything. Hatred didn't fit the one he had chosen for the town to see. "She was my partner for ten years. We were friends.

But"he couldn't help it, the words spilled out"I refuse to call her a saint, the way everyone else seems to be doing today. She committed suicide, for Christ's sake. She took her own life, which was an ultimately selfish thing to do. If you'd been at the funeral, you'd have agreed. All those people came to pay tribute to her, after she let them down.

She let us down, too, Paige and Angie and I.

We relied on her to carry her weight in the practice. Now, by her own hand, she's out of the picture, without a word, no warning, nothing."

He stared gloomily at his beer. No matter that he had seen Mara's grave filled in, he couldn't believe she was gone. He would have thought her too feisty to have allowed death to take her on its very first try.

Then again, Mara wasn't always what she appeared to be. She had a softer, more vulnerable side. He had seen it. He wondered if any others had.

The Tavern door opened, this time to the town's major landlord. Jamie Cox owned two of the three blocks of stores that made up Tucker's center, nearly half of the shabby double-deckers in lower Tucker and miscellaneous other pieces of real estate scattered through town. He was tall and skinny and wore his clothes too short and too tight in a way that made him look as miserly as he was.

"So she's gone, huh?" he said, stopping at Peter's booth. "Can't say I'll miss her. She was a royal pain in the butt."

Peter snorted. "She loved you, too."

"Didn't like what I was doing around town, that's for sure."

Peter didn't, either. A person didn't have to be a crusader like Mara to recognize decay.

"You have to admit lower Tucker's looking pretty bad. Can't you do any cleaning up out there?"

"That's the job of the tenant. Says so right on the lease."

"The houses need painting. That's your job."

"And I'll do it soon as they clean up the yards. That's their job."

"Come on, Jamie. You're the one with the money."

Jamie scowled. "Jeeez, you're sounding just like her. If you're planning to pick up where she left off, don't bother. I don't care if you were born here, you won't have any more luck than she did. It's my money that keeps this town going. That gives me a certain say-so."

"But she was right." There was a nobility to admitting it on this one small score.

"Especially about the movie house. It's a fire trap."

"It's a gold mine, what with films every weekend and a special event in between. The concerts coming up are all sold out. I saved a few tickets, if you want a pair."

Peter grunted. "No thanks. I'm not into suicide."

Jamie gave a thin laugh and swatted his shoulder as he walked on past.

"Bet you didn't think she was either, huh?"

Left without the last word, Peter felt a new stab of anger toward Mara, because Jamie was right. Peter hadn't thought her capable of suicide, hadn't thought her a coward, but that was just what she was. If she'd had any guts, she wouldn't have killed herself. She would have faced her sorrows and dealt with them.

Not that he was sorry she hadn't, he thought as he took a long, cool, calming drink. She might have had those few soft moments when he had found her irresistible, and those few mellow moments when he had found her interesting, even those few lighthearted moments when he'd found her fun, but the rest of the time she was as difficult a woman as one could meet.

Mara O'Neill wasn't irreplaceable, either as a doctor or as a lover.

The proof of that sat before him right llOW.