Page 21 of Claiming Bennett (Montgomery Dreams #3)

MAGGIE

The Lubbock airport smells like stale coffee and exhaustion. I probably smell the same.

My clothes are wrinkled, a hoodie two sizes too big for me draped over my shoulders so I can hide from everyone milling around waiting for their flights as I wait for Penny to pick up. I’ve already called her twice, but it’s barely morning in Montana. Hell, it’s barely morning here .

She finally picks up with a groggy noise of confusion, and I start speaking without so much as a hello.

“I’m in Texas,” I blurt out, not knowing where to start.

My mind is a mess, thoughts whirling and twirling around each other until they’re nothing but a knot that I don’t know how to untangle.

“Huh?” Penny sounds exhausted, and I hear her stifle a yawn. “Maggie, it’s five in the morning. What do you mean you’re in Texas?”

“I caught a flight last night. I found Bennett’s address in Dad’s records and flew down here.”

Tense silence settles over the line, and my heart rate skyrockets.

I’m counting on Penny to understand, to be the only one who can really get me on this, but if she doesn’t…

if I’m all alone in the middle of fucking nowhere Texas with nothing but fear and the desperate hope that Bennett will know what to do about all of this…

Fuck, I don’t even want to think about it.

“Mags, look,” she says with a sigh, and my breathing goes tight. “I know you’re hurt, and I’m not trying to make light of that, but this… you sound like you’re stalking him. You need to?—”

“I’m pregnant.”

Penny sucks in a gasp, her words falling into nothing. Quiet stretches out between us again, but I can hear her trying to find something to say. She’s always been good at knowing what to say when I can’t think straight, but this is a pretty big bomb to drop.

“I found out yesterday,” I say when the silence gets to be too much.

“Thought I had a cold. Doc ran some tests and here we are. Bennett blocked me and I can’t—I have to talk to him.

I can’t do this alone, Penny. I don’t want to—I want to be with him.

Even without the baby. I can’t imagine a life without him. ”

“Okay, okay,” she says before I can continue. “Take a breath. You sound awful. Are you okay with… all of this?”

Hell of a question.

“I have to be, don’t I?” I ask weakly. “I—If it’s going to happen, I want it to be with Bennett. I don’t know if I’m ready, but I want it.”

“Okay, alright. That’s a good start. When was the last time you slept?”

I laugh, shaky and broken, and shove a hand through the tangled mess of my hand.

“I tried on the flight. Just had nightmares on and off for six hours. I’ve been panicking the whole time.

Like, what am I supposed to do? I was supposed to go to LA and get famous, but now I’m hung up on some random ranch hand and I can’t even bring myself to be mad about it. ”

I glance uneasily around the airport, uncomfortable plastic seats filled with the occasional weary traveller. Thankfully no one is looking my way. I’m just another anonymous traveller, baring my soul to my best friend and shaking apart in the corner in a city I’ve never been to.

“Have you eaten?” she asks, not responding to anything I actually said.

Always pragmatic, my Penny.

“Not yet.” I finally manage a deep breath, the first in what feels like a year. “Morning sickness.”

Anxiety too, but that goes unsaid. Penny laughs wryly on the other end of the line, apparently happy now that I’m not halfway to hyperventilating into the phone.

“I’ll fly down and join you, just tell me where you are,” she offers. “I don’t want you to deal with all of this on your own.”

Normally, I’d jump at the thought of having someone else to share the burden with, but I hesitate.

It’s not that I don’t trust Penny—I trust her more than just about anyone—I just…

something about this feels so delicate, like more hands in the pot will make it shatter, no matter how gentle everyone is.

I shake my head slowly, trying to find the right words.

“I’m in Lubbock,” I say, my voice more steady than it has been since she picked up. “But I don’t want you to come here.”

Penny hesitates before sighing and saying, “Okay? I mean, I’m not going to do it if you don’t want me to, but are you sure? This is… kind of big, Mags.”

My chest feels lighter just having said it, and something in me tells me this is the right choice.

I sit up straighter, my spine protesting the movement after having spent so long hunched over trying to fight panic off.

My mind is a million times more settled just at the thought of doing this myself.

I may not be ready to face everything alone, but this step is one I have to take on my own.

No safety nets.

It’s time to put my money where my mouth is and prove that I’m an adult.

“No,” I say, firm in my decision. “No, I’m good. This is important, I have to do it myself. Just… I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Well, yeah, I figured.” She sounds relieved at the change in my tone. “Want me to cover for you?”

God bless Penny. She always knows what I need.

“Just don’t tell Mom and Dad where I went. They’ll probably assume I ran off, but I don’t want them worrying. Would you just go over and tell them I called you and that I didn’t, like, get kidnapped or die or something.”

Part of me hopes that they’ll be too worried to be mad, that this will be enough of a shock that we can actually sit down and have a real conversation.

Dad will probably only wind up even angrier at me than he was in the first place, but maybe we just need to hit a breaking point before things can get better.

I may want to live my life my way, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it without my family.

“I can do that.” I can hear the smile in Penny’s voice, and it makes the shadow of a grin tug at my own lips. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

My whole body feels both featherlight and like I’m weighed down by boulders, my breathing seems impossible to keep steady, and my vision is a little blurry around the edges.

I feel like I’m floating on air and about to crash into the ground face first, in limbo between residual panic, uncertainty, and the relief of doing something instead of sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I laugh, a little too hysterically to write off as sane. “I have no idea, Penny. I’ll be safe, though, I promise.”

Whatever happens next, I won’t dig myself deeper into this hole I’ve been sinking into. I’m going to claw my way out if I have to scrape my fingers to the bone to do it.

“Alright,” Penny says, still sounding a little hesitant despite my assurances. “Just call me if you need anything, okay? You know I’ll be there in a heartbeat if you want.”

The smile that comes at hearing that is a little easier.

“I know,” I say softly, my chest warm with affection and gratitude. “I love you, Pen. I’ll let you know what happens, okay?”

“I love you, too, Mags. Keep me in the loop, I’m only a phone call away.”

We say our goodbyes and hang up, and I feel a million times better by the time I pull my phone away from my face.

My heart has stopped pounding quite so hard, my head not quite so fuzzy.

Even when I pull the paper with Bennett’s address out of my backpack, my hands are the closest they’ve been to steady since I found out I’m pregnant.

I type in the address on the page and order an Uber, taking a deep breath before standing from my seat and heading toward the doors.

The Texas air is warm and muggy outside, and I suck in a lungful of it to center myself.

I’ve got a few minutes before my Uber gets here, and then it’s a half hour drive to Bennett’s.

I’m too anxious to come up with a plan, words and ideas of what to say when I see him jumbling into an incoherent mess in my mind.

Maybe I’ll be able to settle myself on the drive, but my heart is already starting to pound again, so I doubt it.

Worst comes to worst, I’m just going to have to wing it and hope things will work out.

It hasn’t worked great so far, but I’m still standing.

I won’t let myself get knocked down now.