Spying Under the Mistletoe (Love Undercover #2) - Stina Lindenblatt Page 0,49

I can share her wisdom with someone looking for love that lasts the ages.

Landon and I sit together at the dining room table. After we’re served and Josephine says Grace, we begin eating and drinking, sharing stories, and laughing. The food is delicious, and the company even better.

I can’t remember the last time I spent Thanksgiving or Christmas like this.

I’m not referring to the fancy dresses or the suits or even the waitstaff. I’m referring to what it was like when I was a kid. Mom and I would go to Granddad’s house—the grandfather who’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison—every Thanksgiving and Christmas.

All my extended family had been there.

My cousins.

My uncles and aunts.

I later learned that some of those “uncles” were really his associates. A number of them are currently living out their final days in various penitentiaries around the country.

Before I understood what my grandfather did for a living, family gatherings had been a lot of fun.

It was also when Nikolai and I would sneak off and talk without worrying about our parents or his nosy siblings or our equally nosy cousins overhearing us.

“My teacher wanted my class to write about what we want to be when we grow up,” Nikolai tells me one night.

We’re sitting in the treehouse that my father and Uncle Aleksi had built. Both Dimetric and Nadia declared a few years ago that they were too grown-up for such a childish thing, so Nikolai and I are the only ones who ever use it.

“What did you write about?” I ask.

“How I want to be a cop. Then I get to lock up the bad guys.”

“I think you’ll make a great cop. My friend’s father is a cop. He came to school one day to talk about his job. He told us how he’d been given an award for being a hero.”

Nikolai puffs out his skinny chest, as if proud that one day he, too, will be a hero. “What did he do?”

“He helped pull a woman and her baby from a burning car. Like a superhero.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to do.”

“Wanted? You mean you changed your mind after you wrote about it for your teacher?” I pick up the brown leaf that had blown in through the glassless window and crinkle it between my fingers. It disintegrates at my touch, the pieces scattering on the floor around my feet.

“My father saw the report and got mad. Told me I couldn’t be a cop. Not if I wanted to be part of the family.”

I can almost hear Uncle Aleksi saying that, his Russian accent shaping his consonants in a way I could never replicate.

Pretty much the same way all my attempts at Russian had gone. I might have Russian blood pumping in my veins, but I inherited my daddy’s inability to speak the language.

At least that wasn’t why my father left Mamma and me last year. He’s actually proud that I can’t speak the language.

He and my grandfather didn’t get on very well together. It made Mamma sad.

“Why can’t you be part of the family if you’re a cop?” I ask Nikolai.

It wasn’t a problem for Bethany’s family. Why should it be any different for Nikolai’s?

He shrugs.

“Don’t they want you to be a hero one day?”

Now that I think about it, that was the first time I got the inkling that my family wasn’t like the typical family—beyond the obvious part where I didn’t have a father anymore.

“Are you okay?” Landon settles his hand on my knee. There’s something grounding about his touch.

I smile softly at him, threading my fingers with his. “I’m fine. It’s been a while since I’ve been part of a holiday celebration. I’d forgotten how much fun it can be.”

“More fun than having those men at the seniors’ home grill me about why I think I’m worthy enough to be your boyfriend?”

I laugh, a little drunk on my overwhelming happiness and the momentary wistful nostalgia. “I’ll admit that was one highlight of this afternoon.”

“They really care about you. It’s obvious you’re like a granddaughter to them.”

The smile on my face shifts to a full out beam. “I guess that makes me luckier than most people. Forget about having only one or two or four grandfathers, I have a busload of them.”

After dessert, Josephine insists we return to the living room, where we can be more comfortable. It’s fun watching her tease her future grandson-in-law.

“Since you’re going be a married man next year,” Liza says to him from