Free Rated: X-mas: Twice Blessed by Rachel Bo

parted quite amicably.” Her expression grew serious. “But what about you?”
    “What about me?” Jen shrugged. “I already made my decision.”
    Meredith took a sip of her coffee, then sighed. “You don’t seem very happy with it.”

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    “I’m just ... ready to get back to work.” Even to her ears, that sounded lame. “Sure, the sex is great, but I barely know them.” Meredith’s steady gaze seemed reproachful. “I don’t love them,” Jenny insisted.
    Her mother stared at her for several long moments. Jenny tried to look away, but Meredith’s dark eyes were like molasses, sucking her in. Meredith leaned over the counter.
    “Let me tell you what I think.” Jenny drowned in those eyes. She felt as though her soul were being laid bare and found wanting. “I think you do. That’s what scares you. You’re afraid of giving yourself to someone, heart and soul. Someone you might do anything for. Like turning away from the life you’ve worked so hard to build in California.” This pronouncement was so close to what Jenny’s actual thoughts had been that it raised goosebumps on her flesh.
    “Why are you doing this?” Jenny fought back tears, her voice breaking.
    Meredith reached out and clutched Jenny’s hands in hers, tears glittering in her own eyes. “When I married your father, I left my home, my family. Oh, we visit, but I no longer live the life. Everything is different. The Bond is still there, but the land is far away, and the city drowns its voice, every day. Even now, other Wolves ask why I was willing to give up everything that mattered, just to be with a human.” Her hands tightened on Jenny’s. “They don’t understand that no h
    t ing mattered without him.”
    There it was. The root of Jenny’s problem. Her feelings for Devlin and Damien made everything she’d done for the past thirteen years a waste. Nothing else mattered but them.
    And how could she accept that? How could she accept that doing double shifts in a job she hated to pay for a second college degree, pulling up her roots and moving to the other side of the country, working twenty-hour days for the last seven years trying to help Hartmann Designs become what she needed it to be -- how could she accept that it all meant nothing without them? She couldn’t. She was thirty-five years old. Her life up to this point had to have meant something.

    Rated: X-mas: Twice Blessed
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    The tears finally spilled, and Meredith hurried around the bar. She held her, rocking her daughter like she had when Jenny was a child. “Shh. It’s all right, baby. Everything will be all right.”

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    Blessings

    Jenny’s parents drove her to the airport, even thought they couldn’t come in to see her off. “Promise you’ll come back soon for another visit,” her dad gruffed.
    “I will.”
    Jenny stared out the window during the entire flight, carefully keeping her mind blank. It was a relief to finally step through the door of her apartment. Here, she’d be safe.
    Surrounded by everything she’d worked for, she would be able to put Devlin and Damien from her mind.
    She tossed her keys on the table and dropped her bag by the door. She checked the answering machine, smiling when she heard Becca singing “I’ll be home for Christmas” very badly. Apparently, she had decided that her parents were aliens from another planet, her brother’s kids were demons from hell, and she was coming back early. “You never did say when you would be back, so I wanted to let you know I’ll be home on the twenty-second, if you’re in town and want some company.”
    The message should have lifted her spirits, but instead left her feeling sad. It was a shame that Becca’s visit home wasn’t turning out so great, either.

    Rated: X-mas: Twice Blessed
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    Jenny checked her fax machine and found a copy of the B&B Productions contract waiting for her. “I know how you are,” Carol had written across the cover sheet, “so I went