Free Thread of Hope (The Joe Tyler Series, #1) by Jeff Shelby Page A

recommended him for the coaching job.
     
    The huge gates were in place and I pressed the button on the intercom.
     
    “I promise not to hurt you this time,” Gina Coleman said over the speaker.  I could tell she was smiling.
     
    “Thanks.”
     
    I waited at the gates for a couple of minutes until she arrived in her BMW.  The gates opened like a bird’s wings and she got out of the car. She was in workout clothes and covered in sweat.  I might’ve found her attractive if she hadn’t dropped me to the pavement the first time we met.
     
    “Wanna shake my hand?” she asked, smiling.
     
    “Not really.”
     
    “Then why are you back?”
     
    “You gonna call Jordan and tell him I’m here?” I asked.  “He threatened me with much bodily harm.”
     
    “He does that.  A lot.”  She shook her head, disapproving.  “But he’s not here right now, so you’re alright.”
     
    “But if he drove up here in the next ten seconds...”
     
    “I’d do what he told me,” she said.  “I work for him.  Bottom line.”
     
    “Great guy.”
     
    “No.  Great salary.”
     
    Figured I couldn’t argue with that.
     
    “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Chuck?” I asked.
     
    She leaned against the hood of her car, the sweat on her forehead and arms sparkling in the sun.  “Didn’t know I was supposed to.”
     
    I didn’t say anything, letting my silence tell her that answer was worthless.
     
    She stared at me for a moment, then looked down at her shoes, pretending to inspect the laces.  Finally, she caved.  “I work for Jon.  It wasn’t my place to start telling you things.”
     
    “You do know Chuck, though?” I asked.
     
    She thought about it, then nodded.
     
    “How?”
     
    She looked away from me, then looked back and said, “Park your car on the street.”
     
    When I hesitated, she said, “Don’t worry.  He’s out of town today.  It’ll be fine.”
     
    I did as she said.  She swung up next to me in the BMW and I got in the passenger side.  The car smelled like brand new leather and clean carpeting, as if it had just arrived from Germany.  Gina smelled like a mixture of salt and soap.
     
    She hadn’t answered my question, though.
     
    “How?” I repeated.
     
    She made a U-turn and we headed thru the gates and onto the Jordan property.  “We went to elementary school together,” she said.  “Then junior high.”
     
    I never thought of Chuck having had a life before I’d met him and it was odd to hear someone say they knew him when I hadn’t.
     
    “His dad was at the air station at El Toro.  Then he was moved to Coronado.”
     
    “El Toro?  In Orange County?”
     
    She drove us down a winding, hilly road lined with thick shrubbery.  “Yeah.  We lived in San Clemente. He lived across the street from me.”
     
    “I didn’t know he lived up there,” I said, as much to myself as to Gina.  “He never mentioned it.  I knew his dad was transferred to Coronado, but I just assumed they’d always been in San Diego.”
     
    The road forked amidst a grove of massive eucalyptus trees and she veered to the left.  “We used to play together at the park across the street from our houses.  Every afternoon, we’d come home from school and head over.  I’d go down the slide and he’d jump off of it.”
     
    Now that sounded like Chuck.
     
    We pulled up to a single-story ranch house with a terracotta roof and walls of expansive windows.  She shut off the engine and we got out.
     
    Chuck took me to our seventh grade dance,” she said, smiling, walking toward the front door.  “It was a big deal.  First junior high dance and all.”  She paused, put her hand on the door.  “And he was my first kiss.”
     
    I was trying to picture Chuck as a gawky seventh grader, figuring out how to put the moves on the girl he liked.  If the situation had been different, I would’ve burst out laughing.
     
    Gina pushed opened the door and we stepped inside.  It