Home Matched (Salt Lake Pumas Book 4) Read online

  Home Matched

  © 2020 Camellia Tate. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Chapter One

  Sam

  It was practically impossible not to hum O Canada as I walked from the plane to my rental car. Despite how many times I traveled home, it never got old. This year marked ten years since I joined the Salt Lake Pumas. It felt like an actual forever. So many things had happened and yet, coming home? That always felt the same.

  Except this year, it was different. The Pumas hadn’t won the Stanley Cup but we’d come pretty close. I always came home after the playoffs, but this year I planned to spend the whole summer in Lunengrove. Truthfully, the last time I’d spent more than a week here was years ago.

  Being home reminded me of all the things that had changed in my life since leaving the small town I grew up in. Coming home always felt like stepping back in time. It was one of the reasons I didn’t come back for very long.

  This summer, though, was different.

  For one, my baby brother Patrick had asked me to stay around. Pat was getting married at the end of the summer and was building a house for his new wife. If that wasn’t some of the most romantic shit ever, then I didn’t know what romance was.

  The fact that Pat was marrying my ex-girlfriend’s - no, ex-fiancée’s - best friend was maybe a little awkward. I had barely spoken to Charlotte since Helena and I had broken up. Ten years was a long time not to speak to someone. She and Pat had gotten together about five years ago. While I knew about how that had happened, I’d never truly seen them together.

  But Pat was my baby brother; I would do anything for him.

  Including helping him build a house over the summer.

  The two-hour car ride from the airport to my parents’ house was plenty of time to think about how strange it would be to be back for such a long period. Three months felt like eternity when the longest I’d been home was a week at a time.

  “But you’re doing it for Pat,” I reminded myself, parking the car. My parents were on some sort of a whale-watching cruise for a few more days, which was why I was a little surprised to see the lights on in the house.

  Letting myself in, I called out a ‘hello’ that resounded through the house. Maybe they’d come back early. Though, from the smell of something burning, I was guessing that it wasn’t mom and dad who were home!

  “Are you welcoming me with a burnt cake?” I teased Pat as I walked into the kitchen, setting my bags down and giving my brother a wide grin.

  Pat dropped the oven glove he was holding, zipping around the kitchen island so he could barrel straight into my chest. Luckily, Pat had always been the skinnier brother. The full force of his embrace barely rocked me on my heels.

  “No, I’m making a macaroni bake,” he answered, pulling back with a beaming smile plastered across his face. “But maybe I didn’t clean the roasting tin very well. There might have been some crumbs left on it from whenever.”

  He looked completely unapologetic, making it impossible not to laugh. “How was your flight? Are you excited to be home?”

  To Pat, Lunengrove had always been our home. It didn’t matter that I’d moved twice chasing my dream of playing professional hockey.

  Salt Lake had been home for a decade now, yet, it was impossible not to think of Lunengrove as my home as well. Especially when Pat welcomed me into the house I’d grown up in with mac and cheese! It reminded me of all the times mom had taught us how to cook; Pat had always been much better at the follow through than me.

  “I’m excited to see you,” I told him honestly, taking a seat at the table in the corner that was normally used by dad to read a paper in the morning. “Does mom know you’re using her oven?” I teased. “And burning things in it.”

  Pat opened the oven, releasing a waft of cheesy air - that only smelled a little burned. “She knows I’m using it,” he promised. “And so she should assume I’m probably burning things in it. It’s not like dad doesn’t do way worse.” Dad liked to put trays back in the oven after the food had been served out of them, to crisp up all the bits around the edges. It drove mom crazy, but she’d never stopped him from doing it.

  “I felt bad that I couldn’t pick you up from the airport, but I’m spending every spare minute at the house. Well, when Charlotte hasn’t got me running back and forth looking at wedding things. Do you know how many different shades of white there are?!”

  “I really don’t,” I laughed. While I had, once upon a very long time ago, proposed marriage, Helena and I never got to a point where we had to pick out shades of white. A wedding was something that had always been quite far off in the future; we’d been pretty young when we got engaged.

  It was strange to have all these thoughts come back to me. For years, I had avoided thinking about Helena at all - and certainly about what our wedding might have been like! But now, it seemed almost so far in the past that I could think about it.

  Maybe.

  There was, somewhere quite deep down, an ache I didn’t want to address. Luckily, I didn’t need to.

  “When do I get to actually meet Charlotte?” I asked, before waving my hand dismissively. “I know that I’ve met Charlotte before, but I’ve never met her as your girlfriend. Fiancée! My soon-to-be sister-in-law!”

  We’d been at school together and Charlotte was - had been, at least, since I realized I had no idea if she still was - Helena’s best friend.

  Pat paused in dishing up the macaroni bake, chewing on his lower lip as if he hadn’t even thought about me and Charlotte meeting properly. “I dunno,” he muttered, the word half-swallowed. “I figure you’ll mostly be at the house with me. I told Charlotte to stay away from that side of town so she doesn’t accidentally see anything.”

  It was impossible not to laugh. Lunengrove was a small place. There was no way on Earth that Charlotte didn’t already have a pretty good idea what her new house looked like. Maybe, if Pat was cunning, he could keep the inside a surprise.

  “We’re having the engagement party at hers. If you offer to help set up, there’d only be the three of us around.”

  “Yeah, of course, I’ll offer to help.” I nodded.

  When I’d first found out that Pat was dating Charlotte, it had felt a little strange. I obviously knew how close she’d been with Helena and that seemed weird. But Pat and Charlotte had been together for five years now and Pat always sounded so happy when he talked about her. I could hardly think it weird when Charlotte made my baby brother beam widely whenever her name came up in conversation.

  I knew that Pat worried about Charlotte’s connection to my ex-fiancée. Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, it would have bothered me too. But I’d had enough time to accept the fact that this wedding was probably going to involve me seeing Helena again.

  It felt weird to think that it had been ten years since we last saw each other. A lifetime, really.

  Giving Pat a small grin, I promised him that I wouldn’t be weird about it. “She makes you happy and that’s all I care about.” It was certainly the truth.

  There was that beam again, the one that came across in Pat’s voice even when we were talking on the phone. “Charlotte’s amazing,” he agreed happily. “And Helena’s been helping with, you know, flowers and centerpieces and
God knows what else.” The look of absolute bewilderment on Pat’s face made me laugh.

  “I mean, I guess Helena’s gotten used to the idea,” he went on to add. Living in our small hometown, Helena hadn’t had the same opportunity to keep out of Charlotte and Pat’s social lives. It made sense that she’d already be comfortable with the idea of them being together.

  Setting a steaming plate of pasta down in front of me, Pat smiled. “It’s gonna be awesome to have you back for a whole summer, man.”

  I waited for a pang in my chest at the mention of Helena’s name. When one didn’t come, it felt like a relief. It had been a long time since anyone even spoke about Helena around me. Maybe a decade was plenty to get over someone I’d thought of as the love of my life.

  “You’re only saying that because I told you I’d help you build this house,” I teased. Pat wasn’t actually just after my manual labor skills. Giving him a slightly more genuine smile, I nodded. “It will be nice to spend more time with you, baby bro.” Pat rolled his eyes at being called that but didn’t object.

  “This food looks amazing,” I commented. It was finally ready for eating and my stomach growled in response to how great it smelled.

  Pat slouched into the chair opposite, kicking his long legs out under the table. Though we were the same height now, there was enough of a difference in our muscle mass for me to still feel like the bigger brother. Pat liked sports, but had never been as all-in about any of them as I was about hockey.

  “You said a guy on your team builds houses for charity, right?” Pat asked. “Do you think if you asked nicely, he might come up to help? You always go on about how close you guys are, but they’ve never visited your home!”

  “Chase? Yeah, I’m sure he’d be up for a weekend in Canada,” I nodded. “I’ll invite some other guys, too. lifting things will count for off-season exercise,” I added jokingly. That was another thing about staying here all summer - training. I’d arranged to train on my old high school ice. That was going to be weird, no doubt.

  Digging into the food, I gave a surprised groan at just how good it tasted. “Fuck, Pat, when did you learn to cook like this?” I asked. I knew mom had done a good job at teaching Pat, but this was... well, this was better than the macaroni stuff mom made, not that I’d tell either of them that.

  The grin that rounded Pat’s cheeks gave me my answer even before a single word left his lips. “Charlotte. This is one of her unhealthy recipes, but she’s taught me a few that are good for, you know, high-protein and low-sugar, whatever it was you said your new nutritionist was recommending.”

  I remembered telling Pat about El’s suggestions for my diet. I hadn’t expected him to do anything with that information. The fact that he’d learned recipes especially for me warmed me even more than the cheese that was settling in my stomach.

  “Not that I’m going to cook for you all summer,” Pat hastened to add. “But a couple of meals is the least I can do, with how hard I’m going to be working you.”

  Even that was more than I expected; it made me smile. Pat was honestly excited about having me home for the whole summer. It made me feel guilty for never before now spending that much time here. I had never thought about how Pat felt about my short visits. We’d never discussed it.

  Maybe this could be the summer I made it up to him. I was already going to help him build a house for his new wife; that seemed like a pretty good start.

  “I’ll cook for you, too,” I promised. “I’m not actually awful despite what you might expect.” I had been when I’d last lived at mom and dad’s house, but ten years of living mostly on my own had forced me to learn some recipes. I had discovered that cooking was pretty fun.

  “Yeah?” Pat asked, helping himself to another forkful of macaroni. “That sounds great, man!” Contentment radiated off him. It wasn’t that Pat had seemed unhappy before he met Charlotte, but if this was the effect she could have on him then I definitely needed to meet the woman - properly.

  After a few minutes of quiet as we both demolished our servings of food, Pat shifted forward slightly in his seat. “So, still no plus one for the wedding? We’ve officially finalized the seating chart, but for you, I can get Charlotte to squeeze an extra person in! You’re not seeing anyone down there in Utah?”

  “No, no plus one.” I shook my head.

  It had been some time since I last dated anyone I’d consider bringing to my brother’s wedding. Becca and I had split up over a year ago. We’d been together for three years, she was the first woman after Helena that I seriously thought I might marry. It turned out that Becca didn’t agree.

  That had come as a harsh blow. But it made me realize what were the things that I wanted. A family, for one. That was the big thing that had led Becca and I to split up. She hadn’t been ready and I... had been.

  I shook my head, not very interested in going down that thought spiral.

  “Besides, don’t I get to sit at the head table as the best man? Next to... Charlotte’s mom? Is that how it works?” I knew there was an order in which you were meant to sit; Pat would probably know it better. If he knew shades of white, he must know what way people sat at the head table.

  Frowning, Pat nodded his head uncertainly. “Yeah, I think so. Charlotte showed me all these little charts of what order people could sit in. I told her that as long as I get to sit next to her, I don’t care whether mom sits on my left or my right!”

  It sounded a lot more complicated than something as simple as who sat where ought to be.

  “Have you thought about your speech yet?” Pat asked, startling me out of my musings.

  “I have to give a speech?” I asked in perfect deadpan. From the way the frown line deepened between Pat’s eyebrows - a frown line I knew we shared - it had been a very successful joke. “Don’t frown, baby bro.” I shook my head, reaching across the table to bump my hand against Pat’s shoulder. “Of course I’ve thought about it.”

  That was not a lie. I had thought about my speech. And subsequently worried about it. Speeches weren’t my thing. I could do post-game interviews, sure, but a deep, meaningful speech at my younger brother’s wedding? That was intimidating.

  Pat hardly needed to hear about that. There was way too much going on that he already worried about; I hardly planned to be adding to it.

  “It will be great,” I promised. I had the whole summer, right? I’d figure something out.

  Pat seemed relieved, like I’d taken a weight off his shoulders. Well, that was what big brothers were for, wasn’t it? Anything that would ease Pat’s mind at such an important time of his life was the least that I could do.

  “Awesome. Well, I think that’s everything I was supposed to check in with you about.” We both laughed, tickled by the idea of a list of things Pat needed to bring up with me.

  He leaned further forward still. “Now, tell me everything about the Pumas!”

  “Everything?” I repeated, raising my eyebrow at Pat. When he confirmed it, I went into the detail of exactly how we’d gotten to the playoffs. Blow by blow accounts of games he’d almost definitely seen anyway, but Pat never stopped me, just listening eagerly.

  He was an excellent baby brother. I was going to figure out how to give the best speech at his wedding, just like I was going to figure out how to help him build the best house for his new wife.

  And I was very successfully going to ignore the way that new wife was best friends with someone I thought would by now be my wife.

  Chapter Two

  Helena

  NOVEMBER 7TH, 2006

  There were worse things than starting a new high school the week of their 11th-grade dance. As I checked my reflection in mom’s rearview mirror, I couldn’t think of any.

  “I don’t know why you’re worried, sweetie,” Mom murmured. “You had plenty of friends in Halton Hills.”

  “But I don’t remember how I made those friends,” I answered, pressing my pink-glossed lips together. “They were just… always there
.” We’d lived in the same town all my life. My friends Samantha and Lucy had been my friends since we were old enough to walk, when making friends was as easy as swapping stickers and braiding our Barbie’s hair.

  Making friends with other 16-year-olds was a lot more daunting. Getting ready for the dance with no Samantha singing along at the top of her voice, and none of Lucy’s make-up spread across my dressing table, had felt weird and wrong.

  My mom and my sister Kate had done their best. Mom had even loaned me the earrings I’d always admired. Each golden hoop felt like a shield against embarrassment and disappointment. A very small shield…

  “Go on,” mom urged. “Give it half an hour. If you’re not having fun after that, I’ll drive back and pick you up.”

  My hands smoothed my skirt over my thighs. “You promise?”

  “Of course.”

  As I walked into the school hall, nobody turned to notice me. My eyes scanned the crowd, unconsciously looking for friendly faces. Except there weren’t any. I’d been at school for five days. If I was lucky, I could remember a couple of names from every class. They’d all been nice enough, but nobody had stood out as looking for a new friend.

  Which meant I was going to have to be the one to make things happen. Even if I didn’t really know how.

  Taking a few steps forward, I watched a group of girls who I was pretty sure were in my Canadian History class. Two of them were holding out lipsticks to the third, who looked dubious.

  “I’ve got a pink lip gloss you can borrow,” I offered, hoping she might like that better.

  The girls turned to look at me and my stomach turned with anxiety. God, how was making friends so hard? But then, the girls smiled. “Yeah, thanks that’d be great!” the blonde one nodded, making her hair bounce and yet still return to the exact same shape it’d been in before.

  “You’re Helena, right?” one of the other girls asked, surprising me. I didn’t know her name, yet she obviously knew mine. She seemed to sense it, laughing softly. “I’m Lisa and this is Charlotte and Mia.” Both of the girls gave a small wave as I handed Charlotte the lip gloss.