Chapter Fourteen #2
Max let out a yip when Jake stepped down onto solid ground as gracefully as he could. “I know. I know,” he huffed consolingly. “I’m so sorry.”
He turned toward the rear of the ride and found Cass waiting for him. She’d positioned herself between two of the trailers holding massive generators, her back against one wall, as she swept the vicinity with worried, wary eyes.
“You made it,” she cried as he approached.
“We made it,” he said to the dog as he bent to lower Max to the ground at Cass’s feet. The moment he slid his arms out, he plucked the jacket off the dog’s head. “I’m sorry,” he said again, apologizing for both the injury and the indignity.
Max tipped his head back, staring at Cass. Jake couldn’t blame him. Filthy, bruised and bedraggled as she was, seeing her without the pack strapped to her back was the best thing he’d seen all day.
“Hey.” She dropped to one knee beside Max’s head. “Such a good boy,” she said, reaching out to stroke the black stripe on the top of his head. “So brave.”
“He always gets the girl.” Jake was unable to suppress his smile as he said it. If he was going to lose Cassidy’s heart to anyone, he preferred it be Max.
Jake checked the dog over, running gentle hands through thick fur. He grimaced when he spotted the piece of mirrored glass lodged in his partner’s upper leg. “I’m going to get you fixed up.”
He patted down his vest pockets. When he found a treat and offered it to Max on his palm, the dog sniffed it, then turned his nose up. “Boy, you are hurt,” Jake said as he put the morsel back in his pocket. “Okay, we need an EMT.”
“I’ll get one.”
Cassidy started to rise, but he caught her wrist. “No. I think you should keep a low profile. Let him wonder if you’re trapped in there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the wreckage.
She shook her head, the familiar stubborn gleam back in her eyes.
“I’m not hiding out, waiting for this thing to be over.
If he wants me, he’ll have to come and get me.
” She shrugged off his grip and rose. “Besides. We can’t let anyone near this mess.
Someone,” she enunciated, pinning him with a glare, “tossed a backpack full of explosives into the mix.”
Jake winced, then nodded. “Okay, fine. We need to clear the area.”
“You, too,” she pointed out.
As if he’d grown tired of being left out of the conversation, Max rolled onto his belly, stretching his front paws out as if preparing to rise. But when he attempted to get his hand legs under him, he subsided with a whimper of pain.
Jake heaved a sigh. “I’m gonna have to carry you, bud. It’s gonna hurt, and I need you to promise not to rip my face off,” he said, moving into a squat beside his partner.
“Do you want my jacket back?” Cassidy offered the wadded ball of fabric.
Jake shook his head and looked into Max’s eyes. “Nah. I think we’ll be okay without it. He can see better now, can’t you, boy?”
He groaned as he heaved the dog into the cradle of his arms once more.
Max’s tongue lolled out of the corner of his mouth, and he began to pant rapidly.
“I’m going to have to cut back on your treats,” he grumbled as they followed Cass out from behind the wreckage, picking through the ground littered with cables and detritus from the blast.
He spotted Colonel Aronson talking to Bud Thompson as soon as they rounded the corner. The older man stood scowling at the twisted metal of the Ferris wheel and the carousel’s collapsed canopy.
“Sir?”
Aronson pivoted on his heel, his expression lighting with relief when he spotted Cass walking beside him. “You’re out.”
“We are.”
Jake was winded by exertion, so Cass took over.
“Max is hurt. There’s a piece of glass in his leg and he’s dazed from the explosion,” she said in a rush.
Bud flipped the rear seat of his golf cart down. “Put him on the cart.”
Aronson pointed one blunt finger at her. “Where’s the backpack?”
“In there,” she said, pointing to the approximate location. “Jake figured this area is already a wreck and so we…” She shrugged. “Jake thought it best that we ditch it.”
As Jake deposited his injured partner on the rear deck of the cart, Aronson raised a bullhorn to his mouth. “Fall back. Fall back. Undetonated device in the area.”
There was a flurry of action as the men and women who usually rushed into danger hurried to escape it.
Bud gestured to Cassidy. “You take it. I’ll meet you up there.”
“Thanks,” Jake said. He climbed onto the passenger seat and knelt, throwing his arms across Max to hold him in place. They took off with a jolt and soon they were speeding up the path toward Barton Coliseum.
Max was looking more alert when they coasted to a stop in front of the arena doors.
One of the fire department ambulances pulled in from the opposite direction.
Evan Furst hopped down and jogged over to the cart.
“Got a call someone is injured,” he said, eyes darting from Cassidy to Jake and back again.
“It’s Max,” he said, gesturing to the dog’s leg.