Page 112 of Sinners Retreat

Cat rushes up the stairs. “Kindra’s pregnant? What?”

“Congrats, man!” Maverick pushes past Bennett to get to Ezra. He pulls him in for a hug. “If Bennett doesn’t want anything to do with it, can I be the godfather?”

Cat grips my hands and starts jumping up and down. “And I can be the godmother! This will be so much fun!”

“Stop!” I shout, and everyone freezes. “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m not pregnant. Ezra and I are engaged, and Jim offered to let Ezra run a winter retreat in Alaska. That’s it. That’s all the news.”

“You’re engaged?” Cat shrieks, and there go my eardrums.

I hold up my ring, and she fingers it like it’s the Hope Diamond. I’ll never stop being amazed by the way my successes become her successes. Friendship is pretty badass, not gonna lie.

“Wait, go back a step,” Bennett says. “A retreat in Alaska? I hate snow.”

Ezra holds out his hands. “Nothing is set in stone as of yet, but Jim approached me with it, and I’m waiting for Kindra’s input before I decide.”

“I say we do it.”

All heads turn toward me.

“Think about it,” I say. “We all met because of the summer retreat. We made some really good memories. Imagine if we could do that more than once a year. We could get the entire gang back together.”

“So you’re on board?” Ezra asks, his eyes wide with excitement.

I nod, and his smile nearly splits his face.

“I won’t be going,” Bennett says. “You all can freeze to death in Alaska this winter. I’ll be on a cruise somewhere warm.”

“This winter retreat just sounds better by the second,” Cat says with a dreamy look in her eyes.

Eyes that are firmly set on Maverick.

“I used to snowboard when I was younger,” Maverick says. “Any chance we’d have a little slope action?”

Ezra laughs. “With Jim’s budget, I’m sure we can make that happen.”

“What about a ride on a horse-drawn sleigh?” Cat jumps up and down. “That would be so romantic!”

“We’ll consult you all when we’re ready to start planning,” I say, “but that may be a ways off yet. Right now, let’s get inside. It’s getting chilly.”

We all head into the house. While everyone settles themselves in the living room, I prepare a tray of apple cider spiked with rum. Ezra and I have learned that alcohol makes the Cat-Bennett dynamic a little more tolerable, though only slightly.

I return to the living room. As we sip cider and talk, the pumpkin contest is quickly forgotten when Bennett drops a bombshell.

“I think I found a sibling,” Bennett says, and we all fall silent. Cat doesn’t even have a snide remark. “Daddy Dearest tried to keep a clean trail, but he left a little evidence behind. So far, Ionly know of one more Carter sibling out there somewhere. No clue if it’s a sister or a brother, but they’re in the States.”

Ezra lowers his mug to the table. “We always knew there were more of us. Father loves women.”

“Right,” Bennett says, “but we didn’t know we had one so close to home. The child was born to a woman named Margaret somewhere in Texas, but I don’t have more than that. It could have been last year or forty years ago.”

I turn to Bennett. “How do you even know what you know?”

“My mother,” he says, though it seems to pain him to speak those two words.

Ezra squeezes my hand in silent communication.Say no more, this touch says.

“Why don’t we get to the pumpkins?” I stand and smooth the front of my pants. “Ezra, set yours up in the kitchen beside mine. Cat, you and Maverick do the same.”

Bennett excuses himself to the bathroom while the four of us busy ourselves in the kitchen. Cat carved a hissing cat into her pumpkin. It’s pretty good, but I don’t think it stands a chance against Maverick’s. The man is an artist. He etched a detailed Ghostface into the orange flesh, and when we cut out the lights, it gets even better. He’s hidden a bloody knife within the lighter areas, but it’s invisible until the candlelight shines through.

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