She hadn’t managed to separate Alex the doctor from Alex the wicked seducer.

And Alex was using standard resuscitation techniques, she assured herself, handing the venflon to the SHO who was trying to find a vein. There was nothing unfamiliar about the steps he was taking—just the reasons behind them.

‘Once you’ve taken the blood get a unit of saline up,’ Alex instructed as he continued his examination. ‘Pete, you did too many dives and you came up too fast. You’ve got something called type one decompression sickness.’

Jenny listened in fascination and resolved to pluck up the courage to ask him about it later.

His gaze lifted and he looked straight at her. ‘Get me the diving medical centre on the phone, please. I think we need to transfer him.’

Tina jerked her head towards the phone. ‘The number’s stuck on the wall.’

Jenny dialled and found herself talking to the duty diving doctor.

Alex strode over and relieved her of the phone. ‘Chris? How are you doing? I’ve got a customer for you…’ He quickly outlined the patient’s condition and gave details of the dive and the history before listening to his colleague.

Finally he replaced the phone and strode back to his patient. ‘We’re transferring you to the diving medical centre,’ he told him. ‘Tina, can we give him some aspirin, please, and arrange for an ambulance?’

Considering the amount of pain the man seemed to be suffering, Jenny was surprised that Alex was giving Pete aspirin.

His gaze flickered to hers. ‘Severe decompression can cause capillary sludging,’ he told her, obviously reading her mind, ‘and it’s the only analgesia I’m prepared to risk. Strong analgesia can mask recompression responses.’

Jenny nodded, grateful for his explanation, wishing that she’d been more knowledgeable for their first working encounter.

They prepared the man for the short transfer and in no time at all the ambulance crew arrived, ready to collect him.

Alex did a quick handover to the SHO who was going to accompany the patient and then went with the team to load him into the ambulance.

Jenny set about restocking Resus with Tina. ‘I’ve never looked after anyone with decompression sickness before. I felt decidedly out of my depth,’ she confessed, and then smiled as she realised what she’d said. ‘Pardon the pun.’

Tina laughed. ‘You did fine.’

‘How come he only started getting symptoms today if it was yesterday that he was diving?’

Tina frowned. ‘I don’t know, actually. You’ll have to ask Alex. He knows everything.’

As if on cue, Alex strolled back into the room. ‘What do I know?’

‘Jenny was asking why it took so long for the diver to show symptoms.’

Jenny coloured slightly. She would rather have not drawn attention to herself and she was still having trouble regarding him in a professional capacity.

Doctor, she reminded herself firmly, concentrating on the stethoscope looped casually round his neck. Today he was a doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

‘Symptoms can occur from several minutes up to forty-eight hours after diving,’ Alex explained, not by a flicker of an eyelid betraying the fact that they were at logger-heads. ‘Decompression sickness is the result of gas bubbles travelling to various parts of the body.’