“Daily. What’s the matter with your arm?”
He was holding it away from his side at an awkward angle. “Nothing.”
I stepped inside. “Let me see.”
“Aw, Minnie, don’t—”
“Let. Me. See.”
Once again, the Librarian Voice did the trick. His shoulders slumped and he let me pull him into the brightness cast by the halogen work lights scattered around the entryway. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “It just needs a little more time.”
I pulled at a corner of the first aid tape and started tugging. “This might hurt a little.”
“Jeez, Min, that stings like a you-know-what. Do you have to?”
With one quick rip, I yanked off the tape.
“Ow!”
“Quit being such a baby,” I said. “Now let me see your stitches. Come on. Show me.”
“Don’t want to,” he muttered, but held out his arm.
I took hold of his wrist, pulled off the gauze, and turned the wound to the light. I sucked in a quick breath. “We’re going to the hospital. Now.”
“Aw, Min—”
“Rafe Niswander, your arm is red and puffy with infection. Next thing is you’ll get those red streaks and then you’ll get a staph infection and then they’ll cut off your arm, but by then the infection will have gone too far and you’ll spend two weeks in the hospital sliding toward an early death, all because you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Can’t die, I got too many things to do.”
“Rafe.” I swallowed. “Come to the hospital with me. Please.”
He looked at my face. I don’t know what he saw there, but for once he didn’t argue.
• • •
Forty-five minutes later, we were back in Charlevoix’s emergency room. The attractive Dr. Tucker Kleinow came in as I was helping Rafe up onto the hospital bed.
“Back again?” he asked. “Another problem with your saw?”
“Nah,” Rafe said. “Minnie here is all worried about that cut you sewed up a while back. Tell her it’s okay, will you? She’s getting on my case something fierce.”
I crossed my arms. “Only because you’re not taking care of yourself. If you had, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Dr. Kleinow snapped on gloves and examined Rafe’s arm carefully. “You definitely have some infection going on. Did you fill the prescription for antibiotics that I gave you?”
“Sure did,” Rafe said.
I glared at him. “But did you take them?”
“Well, yeah.”
“All of them?”
“Not all in a row, like,” he said. “I forgot a couple of days and it looked good, so what was the point, right?”
I drew in a long breath, the better to yell at him with, but the doctor stepped in between us. “I’ll clean this up again, if you two don’t mind putting a pause on your argument. You can yell at your husband on the way home.”
“My . . . what?” Surely he hadn’t said what I thought he’d said.
Rafe chuckled. “Don’t know what’s funnier, thinking that she’d marry me, or that I’d be dumb enough to ask her.”
I frowned. “Was I just insulted? Because it sure sounded like it.”
Dr. Kleinow looked from one of us to the other. “Siblings?” He looked a little closer, undoubtedly noting the complete lack of family resemblance. “Adopted, maybe?”
Rafe and I shook our heads. “We’re just friends,” I said. “Neighbors.”
“Only relatives are allowed with the patient in the examination room,” the doctor said.
Rafe and I looked at each other. We shrugged simultaneously. “Everybody must have thought we were married,” Rafe said. “I can see it. Did you hear how she was ragging me for not taking those pills?”
“She was right,” Dr. Kleinow said.
“Oh, sure, take her side,” Rafe said. “The cute girl’s always right, is that it?”
“There are worse reasons to take sides.” The doctor grinned. “Now, let’s get a closer look at that arm.”
• • •
After another forty-five minutes, Rafe was cleansed, rebandaged, and more or less beaten into submission about taking the newer and much stronger prescription. His post-emergency-room care, however, was being more problematic.
Rafe looked at the doctor mournfully. “Don’t tell me Minster here was right, that I could lose my arm. Taking these new freaking horse pills will be enough, right? You’re not going to cut my arm off, are you?”
“It’s been known to happen.” The doctor handed Rafe a handful of papers, all of it with teeny tiny print. “Here’s what you need to do.”