Can't Help Falling (2 page)

“What are you getting her? Want to go in together?”

Ha. Not likely. “Don't know yet, so probably best if you sort yourself out.” He stepped back to allow a girl with brown, wavy hair and a focused expression to brush past him, heading for the adjoining room. There was something in the tilt of her
head, the determined stride of her legs, that pulled his gaze to follow her as she walked.

“Do you mind if I crash at your place for a couple of nights? Marissa's kicked me out.” His brother's voice jerked his attention away from the woman and back to their conversation.

“Again?” Peter couldn't think of anything he'd like less. He already saw way more of his brother than he had any desire to.

“Says the guy who's had all of, what? One girlfriend in his entire life? How about we talk when you have some experience under your belt, little bro.” Peter couldn't have been less interested in the kind of experience Victor referred to, but his brother's jab still hurt.

Didn't matter what Peter said; his brother would have taken up residence on his foldout by the time Peter got home. “Two nights. Max.”

“Gotcha.”

No doubt Victor would be on the charm offensive tomorrow, wooing his way back into his on-again, off-again girlfriend's forgiveness for whatever his latest transgression was. And she'd relent, as she always did. For a smart girl, Marissa was mighty dumb when it came to his brother. Peter would have put money on Afghanistan's winning an Olympic rowing gold over his brother's backing up the promises that slipped off his lips like honey but always delivered vinegar.

“And pick up some milk and cereal on your way over. We're out.” He ended the call before his brother could reply. If Victor managed one out of the two, Peter would count it as a win.

He'd spent his entire life covering his older brother's backside, and it had reached new heights in the last year. He was over it. Over being hauled out of bed at crazy hours to get him
out of trouble. Over his flat being treated like a halfway house whenever it suited. Over helping Victor achieve the very dream that Peter had been robbed of. Over trying to help cover up the gaping crevices in his brother's character. Yet he kept doing it because the alternative was worse.

He scanned the teacups one last time. As if one might have miraculously transformed in the last thirty seconds. Nope. Still nothing.

Jamming his phone back into his pocket, he turned to head back to the front door, then paused. Might as well keep looking around. Maybe the teacup was a bust, but something else might grab his eye. It wasn't like he'd been smart enough to come up with a Plan B on the present front.

Turning back, he pulled his hat off his head as he ducked under the archway into the next room, partly intrigued to see what it was the girl with the wavy hair had been so intent on reaching.

Stopping, he blinked, trying to work out what he was seeing. Or wasn't. There were no exits from the room except the one he was standing in. But the girl had disappeared.

O
nce Emelia had located the town center, it had been easy to find an antiques shop. Now she just hoped it held the one thing she was looking for. It had to. This was England. The first room hadn't yielded anything apart from a gentleman manning the register who looked like he predated most of his shop's contents and a tall guy on a phone.

Ducking through an archway, she stepped into another room packed with furniture. It was almost impossible to move
between tables, chairs, side tables, and desks to get farther into the space.

But there it was, in the far corner: a tall, wide wardrobe flush against the wall. How she didn't see it as soon as she walked in, she had no idea. Imposing. Majestic. In the crowded room, there was space around it, a gap between it and the other pieces of furniture. As if even inanimate objects instinctively knew that this was something deserving of deference. Not to be crowded around like baked beans packed into a can.

Moving furniture out of the way as quietly as possible so as not to attract any attention, Emelia drew closer. Until she was close enough to touch it, to see her breath fog up the varnished mahogany.

Of course, the real one was made of apple-tree wood, but who really knew what that looked like?

It was deep, one of the deepest she'd ever seen. And tall. Towering above her, not even an inch between its top and the ceiling.

Lifting her left hand, she brushed the wood with her fingertips, then placed her palm flat against the cool surface.

Looking over her shoulder, she scanned the space. No one. The only sound was the low, muffled voice of the guy on the phone in the other room.

Biting her bottom lip, she let her fingers run along the side of the door. The wardrobe tugged at her, the way all wardrobes like this had since she was a little girl.

Wherever you are, Emmy, you will always find safety in here. And one day, one day, you and me? We'll find the wardrobe.

The words her mom had whispered to her tiptoed through her mind. Whispers of the past that haunted her every step.

The door swung open without even a squeak. Smoothly, on hinges that felt like they'd been oiled seconds ago, even though the cobwebs in the top corner told a different story.

She stuck her head in. Darkness met her like a warm embrace. For all the unfulfilled promises her mother had made, for some reason the one about always feeling safe in wardrobes had stuck. Along with the compulsion to continue her mother's lifelong mission to find
the one
.

There were rules, of course. No feeling for the back until you were inside. No playing it safe, keeping your feet on the outside and reaching out. You had to commit. Narnia would never be found by those who were uncertain or ambivalent.

Sitting on the bottom, she swung her legs inside, tucked them toward her chest, and pulled the door closed behind her until just a sliver of light remained. Her hand hit something small. In the darkness she couldn't see what. Picking it up, she held it right in front of her face. A floral teacup and saucer set. What was a teacup doing in a wardrobe? Though, to be fair, it was probably thinking the same thing about her. Her hand relocated it under her tented knees so she wouldn't accidentally break it.

She sat for a second. Felt her shoulders relax against the wood. Then realized she wasn't alone in this space. Something soft brushed against her head. Reaching up, she grasped a sleeve. Her pulse drummed in her throat. Maybe . . . She'd never really allowed herself to hope it might be true. Even though she couldn't deny her compulsion to climb inside every antique-looking, wooden wardrobe. The deep-seated kind that wouldn't allow her to walk away until she knew
for sure
it wasn't a portal.

But there had never been one filled with coats before.

Well, if this was it, she wasn't going to discover the mystical land sitting on her backside. Pushing herself up to standing, she faced the back of the wardrobe and reached out a hand in front, preparing for disappointment, yet half expecting to feel the soft whisper of a snowflake against her fingers.

Her hand hit wood. Solid, unmoving wood. Her whole body sagged. There was no portal here. She was crazy. Just like her mother.

Emelia battled the urge to sink to the floor. To curl herself up into a ball and cry. What was she doing here? In Oxford. In an antiques shop. In a wardrobe. It would have been funny, if it weren't so pathetic.

Turning around, she leaned her forehead against the frame of the door, trying to settle her thundering pulse and soothe the unreasonable disappointment that had blossomed inside.

Suddenly, light flooded in. Everything shifted and her body jolted, discombobulated by the sudden change.

“Argh . . .” Arms flailing, she plunged headlong into the space where the door had vanished faster than a Turkish delight within Edmund's reach.

“Oomph.” The sound of air bursting from lungs registered about the same time as the sensation of arms grasping her waist, preventing her from hitting the floor.

A blur of navy blue and the scent of cinnamon were all she managed to distinguish from the chaos as her feet found the ground.

One thing she knew for sure: there was no chance this was the octogenarian who'd been holding down the fort when she'd walked in. A good thing, since she would have squashed him
flat. Instead, she found herself staring up into the very surprised face of a green-eyed male with an unruly thatch of what could only be described as flaming ginger hair.

Relinquishing his hold, he grinned down at her. “So . . .” The accent told her he was as English as mushy peas and warm beer. “Are you a Susan or a Lucy?”

A
Susan or a Lucy? Where did that come from? Victor was always the one with the lines, not him. Never him. Peter was the guy who could practice a line for days and be left dry mouthed and mute when it came time to deliver it. Let alone when someone who looked like a Narnian wood nymph fell on top of him.

The missing girl stared up at him. All wide blue-gray eyes and wavy hair the color of Cadbury milk chocolate. She was tall too, reaching his nose when most girls barely made it to his shoulders.

She was clearly a Lucy. Susan, ever the older sister, was way too practical to go climbing into wardrobes on a whim.

“Let me guess. You're Peter.” Both her tone and her face were inscrutable. The only thing that gave anything away was the American accent.

He frowned, searching her face for anything that could trigger a memory of her. “Do I know you?”

Now she looked confused as she shook her head, hair bouncing across her shoulders. “No. Why?”

“Then how do you know my name?”

“Your name?”

This was the weirdest conversation ever. Not that, he supposed,
much more could be expected when it began with someone falling out of a wardrobe onto you. “How did you know my name was Peter?”

Now she gave him the kind of look one gave someone extraordinarily thick. “I was being sarcastic. Peter. As in Peter and Edmund. Lucy and Susan's brothers. And no one ever wants to be Edmund, do they?”

Good one, clever clogs. For once in your life, you come up with a good line and you manage to blow it.

“Are you trying to say your name is actually Peter?”

“Guilty.”

Awkward silence. She stared up at him, her face unreadable. “It's a bad line. It gives you away.”

“As what?”

“That you're not a real Narnia fan.”

“I'm not a real Narnia fan?” He almost laughed aloud at how wrong she was.

“A true Narnia fan would never ask a girl if they were a Susan or a Lucy.”

And with that cryptic remark she somehow managed to cut past him, weave her way through the furniture-filled room, and disappear. Leaving Peter to stare after her with her final statement resounding in his ears. The sound of the bell ringing and then the front door slamming shut shook him from his daze. What had just happened?

He turned back to the wardrobe and its open door. He'd seen it in here before but never really paid it much attention. He stepped toward it. It looked deep. A few coats hung on old metal hangers. Reaching in, his fingers traversed past the rough woolen material before grazing the wooden back and then traveling down.

His hand brushed against something cool and smooth sitting on the floor as he leaned back. Crouching down, he looked into the depths, his breath snagging at what peered back at him. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes to check he wasn't dreaming.

A teacup. Slowly he reached for it, pinching the saucer between his fingers and pulling it toward him, not even daring to breathe.

Not just any teacup.

The elusive Aynsley 1950s corset-shaped teacup with pink roses he'd spent the last ten years looking for.

“F
IVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE
.” Peter counted down the sprint as Max's seat on the rowing machine moved like a blur. At Peter's last count, the tall, muscular athlete let go of the handles and collapsed over his knees, shuddering and gulping in air.

“Good work.” Peter uttered the useless words as he dropped to one knee. Max didn't even acknowledge them. It didn't matter what he said. The only thing that mattered was the numbers.

The athlete didn't even flinch when Peter drew blood. A tiny prick was nothing compared to the abuse every muscle in his body was giving to him.

Peter tagged the sample and read the numbered sticker out to Grant, so the cox could note it on the clipboard he held. The Boat Race may have been considered an amateur rowing race, but the teams had access to all the same training support as the professionals. The lactate levels in his blood would tell the coaching team far more about how Max's body was responding to the ever-increasing training load than anything else.

Peter looked at the time on the screen. Grant would note that too. Not incredible, but not bad, keeping him squarely in the middle of the pack. It was going to be a close call who the
last oarsman would be for the Blue Boat. Peter was glad he was just the assistant coach—a token one at that—and the decision wasn't on him.

It had looked pretty cut-and-dried after the winter training in Spain, and then James had gone and gotten pneumonia, taking him out of the running and opening the field up again. The news had just come this morning that he wasn't going to be fit to return anytime soon. The guys contending for the now-open seat were throwing everything they had at the opportunity.

Peter clapped Max's sweat-covered shoulder as he stumbled away to cool down. A year ago, he'd been that guy. Body sagging over his knees, lungs trying to grab oxygen with rapid short breaths. Now he was standing in a gym in Oxford, drawing blood and cross-checking paperwork. He'd only gotten the job because Sean had taken pity on him, scrounging up enough hours between working here and teaching some beginners' rowing courses at the Oxford Academicals Rowing Club to pay what he needed to barely scrape by.