Love & Serenity

Chapter 29

The days went by and the last day of the fall festival was finally there. The residents had closed shop early and went on to attend to their booths which were placed orderly around the stage where the rest of the events was going to take place.

Lillian wore a simple and pretty dress, the hem danced around her knees. She'd worn a little makeup and Mindy had literally chased her away from the booth and told her to go have fun. She'd decided to stop at everyone's booth and check it out if not get something. At the antique booth, she got a present for Deidre and her employees and then she bought Mrs Barry's lemonade and went on and on until Jax caught up with her.

"Hey."

Lillian turned around and smiled when she saw it was him.
"Hey."

"I was looking for you."

"Well, you found me."

Jax smiled as he stared at her face.
"I sure have."

Lillian blushed and looked away from his piercing gaze.

"How did Mindy take it when you told her?"

Lillian smiled and fell into step with him as they headed towards Davis' rescue adoption post.
"She said it was fine. Everyone wasn't at all bothered about it."

"As I imagined." Jax glanced at her. "You look beautiful by the way."

Lillian glanced at him for a moment before she turned away with a smile.
"Thank you. You clean up nice."

"It was all Otto's idea."

Lillian chuckled.
"What are you ever going to do without him?"

"I have no idea." Jax said with a smile.

"Hey. You guys enjoying the fest?" Davis asked when they stopped in front of the barb-wired section that kept the rescues in.

"We are." Lillian and Jax said at the same time, then looked at each other and smiled.

"How's the adoption going?" Jax asked.

"Oh, we've gotten a lot of adoptions and we've got a few rescues left," Davis said. "One rescue in particular."

"Oh, that's sad. Which one is it?" Lillian asked.

"That beauty over there. I've been finding it really hard to place her in a home." Davis said, "The other dogs are friendly with everyone but she's just...she wants to be left alone."

Lillian watched the dog exclude herself from the other dogs while they wagged their tails at the visitors watching them. Davis and Jax got into a conversation and Lillian just wandered away from them and headed towards the dog.

"Hey there beautiful." Lillian leaned forward and the dog turned to her and quickly scampered away. "I'm not going to harm you, I promise."

Lillian held her hands up to show she wasn't holding anything and then slowly stretched one of her hands forward and the other down as she tried to get closer to it without scaring it.
"I promise I won't hurt you." Lillian kept her hand still and just waited for the dog to come to her of its free will. "C'mon girl, c'mon."

The dog glanced from her hand to her eyes and just watched her like it was trying to tell if she was trustworthy. The dog's nose twitched as it extended its neck forward trying to get a whiff of her hand. Then slowly, it took a step forward and then moved closer to Lillian's hand and then closer and soon its wet nose was sniffing at her hand making Lillian smile.

"That's it, good girl." Lillian wanted so bad to scratch its ears but knew she might scare it away, so she just kept her hand right where it was and let it get used to her hand.