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perfect she’d felt in his arms was potent. Just like before. Eden Caplan, the girl who had made him laugh, made him take a step out of his comfort zone, made him see her in a whole new light.
    He knew it was inevitable that when a person grew up and had varying experiences in their life that it would change them. Sure, she still portrayed the same carefree Eden on the surface—but what was beneath the surface? A woman with scars? A woman who’d been through something that brought pain and anguish into her beautiful emerald-green eyes at the mere mention of it?
    David stood and went to the bookshelf, pulling down the two volumes of paediatric journals he knew contained Eden’s published papers.
    He had no need to consult the index, flicking to the page almost automatically. He’d read the articles a few times and he’d been impressed and proud of her brilliance, glad she’d put that amazing intellect of hers to good use.
    One of the papers was on the specialised care of underdeveloped children in an unsterilised environment, which he knew she’d encountered daily during her work overseas in Third World countries, but it was another article he wanted, about an unusual epidemic which had resulted in over twenty unexplained deaths. The paper cited the signs and symptoms as well as the probable causes. It was a well-formulated and well-written paper, giving information in the matter-of-fact way that was required for journal publications. Emotions weren’t put on the page, but Eden had told him to read between the lines.
    Although Eden was listed as the primary author of the paper, several of her colleagues’ names appeared as well. He’d initially presumed she’d come across this information second-hand and decided to publish it for the common good, which was so typically Eden, but David now realised he’d been mistaken.
    ‘She lived this.’ The shocked words were whispered into the cold silence of his office. He read the article again, taking particular note of the statistics in which twenty children, ranging from one to seven years of age, had died before the cause of the epidemic had been discovered.
    Eden had been the one trying to save those little lives. He knew it because he knew her. She would give and give and keep on giving everything she had to any cause other people classified as lost. She rooted for the underdog. She worked hard to lift the oppressed. Eden had been the one fighting for the lives of those children, and those twenty deaths would have weighed heavily on her heart.
    The time she’d made him and Sasha help her look for the lost kitten in the quarry had shown him how closely she felt loss. They’d eventually found the kitten after dark, all of them using searchlights in a fenced-off area, but the poor animal had already died.
    Eden hadn’t said a word, but had lifted the creature and cradled it in her arms while they’d carried it back to her house. He’d dug a hole and they’d buried it in the backyard. She’d been solemn and sincere, saying a few brief words once he’d finished covering the small mound with dirt. Her younger brother Todd had found her grief funny, but that had been more due to his immature age than anything else.
    Once the deed had been done, David and Sasha had left, but later that night he’d heard his sister on the phone, consoling a broken-hearted Eden, and he’d realised then just how deeply senseless loss affected the beautiful girl with the expressive eyes and gorgeous red hair.
    Realising she’d witnessed the death of all those children, been unable to ‘fix’ them, and no doubt been with the families when the small mounds had been covered, made tears spring to his eyes.
    If this was the reason Eden hadn’t made it back for Sasha’s wedding then he did understand. Just as Sasha had. He also understood why Eden wouldn’t want to discuss it. Something so deep, so tragic and unnecessary—and she would have taken it all on as her fault. As doctors, they