Free Can't Get Over You (Fortune's Island, Book 2) by Shirley Jump Page B

campout in the backyard on a weeknight. Not this person he didn’t even know. This…prison inmate. Even after all these years, it was tough to put those words together with my brother.
    “I…I have a lot of things to make up for,” Keith said. “With you, with Jillian—”
    “No, you don’t,” Zach cut in. The last thing he wanted, or needed, was for Keith to tell Jillian what had happened that summer all those years ago. How could he explain keeping that from her for years? Denying her the answers she wanted and needed? All this time, Zach had kept this one giant secret—that it had been Keith who attacked Jillian that night on the beach. Keith who had stolen her backpack and left her there, unconscious.
    If Zach told Jillian that, would she forgive him for protecting his brother years ago? The brother he had once idolized, not seeing the truth about Keith until it was too late and he was behind bars? Better to keep all that buried, rather than resurrect it in some misguided make amends journey of Keith’s. “You don’t have anything to make up for,” Zach said. He prayed Keith would let it all drop, would accept that everyone had moved on and forgotten. Even if that was a colossal lie.
    “Zach—”
    “Listen, I have to go. I’ll see you when you get out.” It was an empty promise, because Zach had no intentions of doing that. He had yet to forgive his brother for what he had done to Jillian, or for how he had hurt everyone in the family. Maybe prison had changed Keith. Maybe it had only hardened the rough edges. Zach decided he didn’t want to find out.
    “That’s why I was calling. So you can be there when I get out.”
    “I gotta go, Keith.” Then Zach hung up the phone. He leaned against the roof of his car, the cold metal of his cell phone against his forehead, and felt like a jerk. Keith was his brother, and he was avoiding him like he was the plague. Right or wrong, they still shared DNA and memories, and those facts made Zach’s chest feel heavy.
    He got back in the Mustang and started the engine. He could go home, maybe lie on the couch, catch up on whatever game was playing on ESPN, and kill the couple hours until the bandplayed at The Love Shack tonight. He could hit one of the bars on Fortune’s Island, have a beer and some pizza, and be surrounded by the friends he’d made here. Or he could go to the one person who had always made everything right in his life.
    The one person who was probably going to refuse to see him.
    Zach did a U-turn and headed down the road toward The Love Shack. In a few days’ time, he and the band would be performing here, their one shot at making it big. If he was smart, his every thought would be focused on that. On finally seeing his dream within reach. Instead, all he could think about was seeing Jillian, of being around her, and simply feeling that…calm he always felt when they had been together.
    Her car wasn’t in the lot, but he would bet that it was over at Harvey’s garage, getting whatever was broken fixed. There were only a couple other cars parked at The Love Shack, normal for a Friday night, which usually didn’t pick up until the band arrived around eight.
    Zach parked and debated going in the front door, then figured if he knew Jillian, he knew where she’d be. He skirted around the outside of the building, down the crushed shell path that yielded to sand, then up the creaky wooden steps of the back deck.
    Party lights hung in loops between the rafters, all covered by a faux tiki thatch roof. The tables were painted picnic tables, built to withstand the battering of ocean storms and to stay put when the winds got high. When the weather was good, Grace and Whit opened the doors between the restaurant and the deck, and let the music from the band fill the outdoor space. It became an undulating party on nights like that, with people filtering in and out of the spaces, filling the bar, dancing on the deck, or grabbing a bite to eat at one of