Free The Good Daughter by Jane Porter Page A

a white picket fence and all the rest of the pictures she’d taken since leaving the cottage for her walk.
    “You’re good,” he said flatly, no emotion in his voice and yet there was something hard enough, deep enough that made her look up at his face, that made her want to take her camera back and shoot him here, like this, up close.
    Rough. Edgy. Callous. Her gaze fell to her camera in his hands. His hands were scarred. She could imagine him fighting.
    “Can I have my camera back?” she asked quietly.
    “What’s your name?” he said, handing it to her.
    “Kit.”
    The corner of his mouth lifted. “Short for Kit Kat bar?”
    She almost laughed. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “
No
. Katherine.”
    “Katherine what?”
    “Katherine Elizabeth.”
    “Good Catholic name.”
    “I come from a good Catholic family.”
    “What’s your last name?”
    “Brennan.”
    “Irish, of course. Which means your dad’s a cop. Am I right?”
    Her eyebrows arched. He wasn’t far off. “Running from the law, are you?”
    He shrugged. “Don’t need trouble.”
    So he was like some of those tough kids she’d taught—boys who were too bright, too curious, too wild for their own good.
    Boys who ended up lying and stealing and cheating.
    Boys who ended up in jail or running from the law.
    “What do you do?” she asked.
    “This and that.”
    Which could mean gangs and drugs, or just that he was a drifter without anyone or anything to tie him down. “I was right. I
have
taught kids like you.” From the corner of her eye she caught a flash of blue. It was Polly, and she was heading toward them, her long blond ponytail bouncing. “My mom’s brothers are police officers. My dad’s a fireman.”
    “I’ve spent time in jail.”
    Of course he had. She took an uneasy step away. “I better go.”
    “Smart girl.” He turned the key in the ignition and his bike roared to life.
    As Polly approached he set off, bike and man hurtling dangerously down the street. Polly turned her head and watched him shoot pass and then pulled the iPod’s buds out of her ears. “Who was that?” she asked, looking at Kit.
    Kit watched the bike disappear from view. “I don’t know.”

Six
    B ack at the cottage, Polly headed upstairs to shower while Kit took a seat in one of the old rattan chairs in the living room, intent on recording grades from last Tuesday’s vocab quiz into her laptop. Instead, her eye fell on her camera lying on the coffee table next to the stack of faded
National Geographic
magazines no one ever read.
    Kit flashed to her walk, and her encounter with the motorcycle guy. The whole thing had been surreal. He certainly wasn’t like the men she normally met. Wasn’t building himself up, trying to make himself sound good. If anything, he’d done the opposite. Told her he was trouble. Said he was bad news.
    Too bad more men didn’t come with warnings.
    Kit smiled, imagining warnings on men’s profiles at Love.com.
    Handsome, charming, passive-aggressive doctor.
    Fun, sports-loving, narcissistic family man.
    Successful, fit, explosive business executive.
    Wouldn’t happen. Most people buried their faults, denied theirweaknesses. The biker had done the exact opposite. And it intrigued her. Not that she should be interested, or intrigued, by a guy like him. Kit had encountered her fair share of predators and weirdos in her time and she didn’t need another weirdo shadowing her now.
    But that didn’t stop her from reaching for her camera and reviewing the photos she’d taken, examining each shot as objectively as possible, lingering on the shots of the orange bike, and then stopping on the two of the biker.
    He was even better-looking in the photos than she’d remembered. Broad shoulders, big chest, neat hips, thick biceps beneath the cotton thermal shirt he wore under the leather vest. No, she definitely had never dated a guy like this. Nor been attracted to a guy like this. Now Brianna had. But then Brianna liked