Page 20 of Claiming Bennett (Montgomery Dreams #3)

MAGGIE

The air of the exam room is cold, the paper covering on the table crinkling every time I so much as breathe. My arm aches beneath the bandage Dr. Mulaney applied to stop any bleeding after drawing a few vials of blood to run tests on.

Bennett left a month ago.

A month of tense silence at the dinner table and explosive fights.

A month of anger and pain and pouring my heart out to Penny because she’s the only one who understands.

A month of loneliness. I feel like a shell of a person, too tired to eat and too hungry to sleep, my skin worse than it was in freshman year.

My calls to Bennett go straight to voicemail, but I can’t seem to stop myself from trying over and over again.

Even my texts won’t deliver. He just walked out, blocked me, and washed his hands of it all.

I didn’t think I was that easy to forget.

Penny says I should forget all about him. She thinks he’s an asshole that used me, but she didn’t see that shadow of pain in his eyes before he left. I can’t explain how gentle his hands were when he touched me, even when he was being rough.

He never made me feel disposable, not until he left.

This last week has been the worst. All the stress is catching up to me, and I’ve been throwing up constantly.

Half of what I do manage to choke down comes back up, and I’ve given up trying to eat at all before noon.

I’m miserable, physically and emotionally, and I can’t help feeling like I deserve it.

If I had just been honest with Bennett, told him how I felt, how much he meant— means —to me, maybe this would have panned out differently.

I was perfectly happy to waste away in my sickness, but Mom yanked me out of bed this morning and forced me out of the house.

At first, it seemed like she was going to drag me along with her all day, but she dropped me off at Dr. Mulaney’s and told me to get a check up while she was out on a house call.

So here I am.

Everyone is treating me like I’m made of glass, talking in hushed tones about how awful I look like I can’t hear them. I don’t have the energy to be mad about it.

The door clicks open, and Dr. Mulaney slips back inside, a pitying smile on her face.

Her red hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, soft blue scrubs reflecting off the overhead lights as she sits down and crosses her long, willowy legs.

It feels weird to be nothing but a patient here again, even though I didn’t work here for that long.

“I ran a pregnancy test,” she says bluntly.

I blink at her in surprise, my mind sluggishly absorbing her words.

“Why?” I ask with a broken chuckle.

Bennett and I fucked twice . Sure, he came inside both times, but I washed out afterward. Besides, it would be insane if I got pregnant from losing my virginity. That’s the kind of shit that hyper-religious weirdos threaten their kids with to make sure they stay abstinent.

“You’re having morning sickness, mood swings, extreme fatigue, and your period is late.”

“By a day ,” I argue, scoffing. “It’s not always clockwork, it’ll probably hit today or tomorrow. I thought you were checking for, like, the flu or something. I’m not pregnant .”

Dr. Mulaney’s eyes twitch at the corners, but she doesn’t say anything else. She just hands me a piece of paper. My vision goes fuzzy around the edges as I reach out for it, the paper crinkling in my too-tight grip. I’m sure it’ll be negative, but that doesn’t explain Dr. Mulaney’s weird behavior.

I brace myself and look down. One word is highlighted, and it stares right back at me, mocking and punching my heart straight out of the back of my chest.

Positive .

Pregnancy test - positive .

The world tilts off its axis, dizziness slamming into me along with a healthy dose of pure, gut deep panic. I drop my hand to my stomach and look up at Dr. Mulaney, eyes wide as my whole body shakes.

“What?” My voice is choked with fear. “What is—what does this mean? I’m not… I can’t be! Run it again, it’s not right!”

The corners of her mouth tug down into a sympathetic frown, and she pulls out another piece of paper.

“I ran it three times, Maggie,” she says gently. “You’re pregnant.”

The words steal my breath from my lungs, and I feel faint just at the thought.

I’m dreaming. I have to be. There’s no way this is real. I pinch my thigh, hard, and hiss when pain flares brightly.

Fuck .

“No,” I whisper. “I—no, I can’t be.”

Dad will kill me. Bennett’s not even here, or Dad would kill him too. I can’t do this on my own, I can’t do this at all. This isn’t how any of this was supposed to turn out!

“I know things like this can be hard.” Dr. Mulaney sounds far off, but I struggle to focus on her words through the haze of panic. “I’m here to help you, hon. There are options.”

Options. My mind clings to that, bringing me out of my spiral.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a clinic that I can send you to if you want to keep the baby,” she says quietly, scooting closer so she can rest her hand on top of mine soothingly. “Or I can prescribe you something if you don’t.”

Horror rockets through me at the very thought, and I yank my hand away from her to press it protectively against my stomach. I never thought I’d have kids so early, but I’ve always wanted at least two. This isn’t how I planned it, but I’d never forgive myself if I just… got rid of it.

“ No .” I shake my head vehemently. “No, I—I’m not aborting. I’m keeping it.”

“I figured,” she says with a soft smile, patting my knee before leaving back. “Do you want me to help you talk to your mom about it? I know it can be scary to tell?—”

“Don’t tell Mom!” I cut her off, panic spiking again. No one can know about this, not until I figure out what to do. Not until I can talk to Bennett. “You can’t. Please, promise me you won’t.”

She shakes her head and holds her hands up innocently. “I won’t say a word if you don’t want me to,” she promises. “Doctor-patient confidentiality. I just wanted to offer a helping hand if you needed it. But Maggie?”

I finally meet her eyes, shaking from head to toe with barely restrained anxiety.

“What?”

“I’ve known you and your whole family since you were a kid,” she says, a gentle scolding in her voice. “This isn’t something you should try to keep to yourself. It’ll just hurt everyone in the long run. Your parents will support you, you just have to talk to them.”

I nod, but we both know I’m not going to listen to her. This isn’t something they’ll have my back on. Not with how strained everything is anyway.

Hell, even the thought of telling Penny has me shaking in terror.

“Take some time to calm down, okay? You can stay in here until your mom comes back to pick you up. Don’t worry about checking out, I’ll have Brooke handle it.”

I hardly even hear her as she leaves the room, my whole world spinning in reverse as I struggle to keep panic from overflowing.

I have to keep my head on straight until I can be alone.

Once I start really freaking out, I won’t be able to stop.

The minutes tick by too fast for my liking, and Mom texts me that she’s outside before I’ve even gotten my breathing back under control.

I shove the paperwork into my bag and stand on weak legs, keeping my eyes on the ground as I shoulder my way out of the lobby doors. The trip out to the car happens in a blur, and I stay quiet while fumbling with my seatbelt, my fingers still numb with shock and fear.

“So?” Mom asks, arching a brow at the tense silence coating me. “Will you live?”

Me, plus one , I think bitterly.

“We’re waiting on test results.” The lie slips out easily, but Mom doesn’t make any move to pull out of the parking lot. I glance over to see her studying me, a worried frown creasing her brow. “She said it’s probably just a cold, told me to get some sleep and stay hydrated.”

Mom hums, finally looking away from me and pulling out onto the road.

We spend the drive home in silence, not even the soft hum of the radio to fill the air between us.

It’s better that way because I can’t hear anything over the pound of my pulse in my ears.

My panic mounts with every second, visions of Dad’s reaction and raising a child on my own flashing across my eyes every time I blink.

I can’t do this alone, but what choice do I have?

I can’t get in touch with Bennett, and it’s not like I can just go search all of fucking Texas for him. If I knew his address…

Well.

I don’t know his address, but I’m sure Dad has it on file somewhere. He worked on the ranch, after all. There must be some sort of documentation.

The thought puts a damper on some of my mounting anxiety, and I focus all of my energy on the thought of finding Bennett. If he won’t make it easy on me, I’ll have to do whatever it takes.

The second we pull to a stop in front of the house, I mumble something about needing the bathroom to Mom before rushing into the house. The stairs creak loudly under my weight, but I take them two at a time, focused exclusively on getting to Dad’s office.

I damn near run down the hallway until I reach his office, and I don’t wait before tossing the door open. He’s not in there, thank fuck, probably still wrapped up in something on the ranch, but I know I need to be quick.

I don’t have any excuse to be in here, and I can’t afford to have anyone figure out my plan.

Hell, I haven’t even really figured out my plan. I just know I need to get to Bennett. Everything else will fall into place however it’s supposed to.

Dad’s files are half-organized at best, and I have to rifle through more than I want to before I finally find Bennett’s.

Thank God he’s the old fashioned type, it would’ve been a nightmare trying to get into his computer.

Most of the information is useless—I don’t care about his work history or why he wants to work on the ranch—but right at the top of the first page is what I’m here for. His address.

Guess I’m going to Lubbock, wherever the hell that is.

I rip the page from his file and rush back to my room, not even bothering to close the office door behind me.

There’s no time to waste right now, not with the threat of a baby hanging over my head.

It’s a good thing I never went on that shopping trip with Penny, because I need to book a flight, and then I need to sort things out with Bennett.

The door to my room bursts open behind me only moments after I close it.

“Mom, Jesus!” I yelp, rushing to hide the paper beneath my blankets. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“What the hell is this, Maggie?”

She tosses a stack of stapled papers at me, my bag clutched in her other fist. All of the blood in my face drains away when I see the logo on the papers.

It’s from Dr. Mulaney’s. My test results. Information on the stages of pregnancy. A list of clinics that specialize in obstetrics.

Fuck .

I was in such a rush to get Bennett’s information that I left my bag in the car. Did she seriously look through my fucking medical records? I would expect it of Dad, but I thought she respected me more than that.

“It’s nothing,” I say, tossing the papers back on my bed with the vain hope that she didn’t look through them.

She wouldn’t be this pissed if she hadn’t seen the results already.

“ Nothing ?” Her eyes widen in disbelief, flitting between me and the papers on my bed. “You call this nothing , Maggie? You’re pregnant! How dare you try to hide something like this from me?”

“It’s not like I knew!”

Both of us are hissing out our words, voices hardly over a whisper to prevent anyone else from hearing.

I should count myself lucky she didn’t go straight to Dad, but I’m too fucking scared to think straight.

I haven’t even had a second to myself to figure out what to do, much less think about anyone’s reactions to this, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to get a chance.

“Maggie, you have to talk to me!” she says, the sharp edge of her voice softening into something almost pleading. “I just want to help you. You’re my daughter, I don’t want you to go through this alone. We won’t tell your dad yet, okay? Let’s just talk and figure some things out.”

She’s probably trying to be supportive, but my mind is going a million miles an hour, and I need to be alone, need space to breathe. I snatch my bag from her hand, ignoring the way my whole body buzzes with bone-deep terror.

“Get out.” I don’t meet Mom’s eyes, and the words come out weaker than I want them to. “They just gave me the wrong paperwork. I have a cold. Just leave.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but I shake my head violently, the first stream of tears breaking free.

“Leave!”

My voice breaks around the word.

I only manage to stay standing until the door clicks closed behind her. The second I’m alone, I crumple straight to the ground, chest heaving as sobs rip out of my chest. Pain and fear well up in an unstoppable wave, cresting and drowning me beneath it.

I clutch at my stomach, horrified at the thought of there being a person growing there, at the thought of being alone for this. What am I supposed to do?

How am I supposed to do this without Bennett around?

How am I supposed to do anything without him here?

Time blurs, much like it has for the past month, the whole evening rushing by in what feels like seconds.

I flip between hysterics and staring at my wall until my eyes burn.

Bennett doesn’t answer any of my calls, everything going straight to voicemail.

My texts go undelivered, but they’re so riddled with typos from my fingers trembling that he probably wouldn’t be able to read them anyway.

The sunset takes so long it feels like days, and then I blink, and total darkness has fallen outside my window. Tears sit wet on my cheeks, hopeless fear heavy in my chest. I can’t handle this alone. I shouldn’t have to. This is just as much Bennett’s fault as it is mine.

I pack a bag with trembling hands, my vision too blurry with tears to even really see what I shove in.

Nothing gets folded, chargers and deodorant tossed haphazardly into the mess of rumpled clothes.

I’m sure I forget plenty of important things, but I can just pick up whatever I need when I get to Lubbock.

The only thing that matters right now is getting to Texas.

I order an Uber and sneak down the driveway, bright pink suitcase in tow, the house just as silent as it was the last time I snuck out to see Bennett.

All of this is going to get sorted out, and I’ll figure out what to do once I talk to Bennett.

He’ll know what to do, and we can deal with my Dad once this whole baby thing is dealt with.