CHAPTER TWELVE
Glory laughed as Emin left a trail of bites across her stomach. Her eyes weren’t open yet. The morning sun had just started to turn the blue room yellow and they were caught in that in-between time. The time when, in Emin’s mind, nothing ever counted. It wasn’t real life yet as far as he was concerned.
He wanted to make love with Glory during that time, the in-between. Actually, he wanted to make love with Glory all the time. And generally speaking, he did. He thanked god that he didn’t have a nine to five. Because suddenly, pulling her onto his lap at noon or going down on her at four pm or over breakfast, these were the things he lived for.
“Wake up, kvietka,” he muttered as he nuzzled one of her hip bones and then the other.
She laughed again and spread her legs under the sheets, but her eyes remained closed.
Emin narrowed his eyes and reared up over her. If she wanted to be woken up, well then, he was absolutely going to-
He frowned at his front door when he heard steps bouncing up his front stairs. And then, wham! His front door slammed open and Dora came prancing in. He’d barely had time to drag the sheet up to cover Glory’s bare chest. Not that Glory would have cared, she loved being naked. But Emin cared.
“Whoa! Wow, sorry,” Dora said, slamming her eyes closed and feeling her way around the kitchen table toward the coffee maker. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your wake-me-up-buttercup.”
She quickly started making coffee while the two lovebirds slid some clothes on.
“Why are you coming here so early?” Emin grumbled, his English a little choppy so early in the morning.
“To make you coffee,” she grinned at them. “And of course, I have some really good news.”
Glory squeaked and had to jump up and down just once. “About my mother?”
Dora nodded and poured an inch of coffee in three mugs; it was all that had brewed in that amount of time.
Glory squeaked again, kissed Emin on the cheek, and dashed off to the bathroom.
Dora raised an eyebrow at Emin and handed him his meager share of coffee.
“She goes to brush teeth,” Emin clarified. “It is her favorite thing now. She says it is like back scratch for mouth.”
Dora laughed. “She’s certainly got a way with words.”
“I can’t do anything without brushing my teeth first, now. I’m addicted!” Glory yelled to them, popping her head out of the bathroom, her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.
“Well, you’ll have to pack toothbrushes and toothpaste when you head off into the Canadian wilderness, then,” Dora said, grinning at Emin.
“You really found her?” Emin asked quietly, his face sober.
The smile fell off Dora’s face. In all her excitement at being able to give Glory this gift, she’d forgotten that it was bittersweet, too. It might mean that Glory went back to where she had come from, stayed with her mother. And what would that mean for Emin?
Her eyes searched his but he was closed. Wanting only the information that she could offer.
Glory came rocketing out of the bathroom, skidding up to her coffee cup and planting herself at the table. She stared at Dora. “Tell me, please!”
Dora took a deep breath. This was more complicated news to break than she’d thought it might be. “So a ton of people have reached out to me ever since my article came out. There have been a ton of crazies, you know, people just saying nothing. But there've also been a few really good leads on more info about Navuka and other locations they might have."
Dora warmed her hands around her coffee cup, looked up at Glory's dear, innocent face, and decided to get right to it.
"A lady called me. She lives up in Canada. She’s got a house on the edge of Woods Buffalo National Park up in Alberta. She said that no one ever believed her, but she's seen tigers in those woods. Orange ones. She's seen as many as three all together, but that was a long time ago. And since then she's seen two. But for the last year, she's only seen one. She was worried that poachers got them. But after reading my article, she started to connect some dots about suspicious activity in her neighborhood and she thought that maybe the animals had been caught by Navuka."
"Woods Buffalo National Park," Glory repeated breathlessly, thrilled to potentially put a name to her motherland.
"Here," Dora said, handing over her phone. "I google imaged it to see if it rang any bells for you."
Glory took the phone and started scrolling breathlessly through the pictures. "Emin! My home! My motherland. Look! The waterfall near our cave and oh! The trees I learned to climb in. Emin!" She tugged his face over, purred over every picture until all he could do was trace a hand over her hair, pull her in for a kiss.