Free The Good Daughter by Jane Porter Page B

trouble and in high school she’d made it a point to only see guys Dad would detest. Kit had been the opposite. She’d only dated boys who were nice. Boys Dad approved of.
    Her thumb stroked the LCD screen, touching the biker’s big shoulders. Dad definitely wouldn’t approve of this guy. Dad would say he was bad news.
    Trouble.
    She rolled the word
trouble
around on her tongue as she studied the biker’s fierce expression, trying to understand who he was and what he did for a living and why something inside of her felt as if it was moving, humming.
    Smart girl,
he’d said when she told him she needed to go.
    And damn him, but that had caught her imagination. Kit didn’t just love books, she loved words, and she found herself replaying their brief conversation, repeating his words. They were charged. Dangerous. Like him.
    So what did he do, this biker guy? This and that, he’d said, but what
was
this and that?
    His bike was impressive, he didn’t appear to have a lot of money, and she couldn’t imagine him at a desk job. He had to be a mechanic or someone who had a trade, worked with his hands. And while his leather vest, combat boots, and ratty jeans made him look mean, tough, she liked his face.
    In terms of shape and structure it was a good face. Handsome. Arresting. Broad brow. High prominent cheekbones. Strong jaw with a squared-off chin. Long, straight nose. A man’s face. No boy left in it.
    How old was he, then? Thirties? She covered the lower half of his face and was drawn to his dark intense eyes and the faint creases at the corners. She covered his eyes and studied his mouth. Faint lines there, too, bracketing his lips. Midthirties. Somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-seven. Definitely younger than her.
    Kit removed her thumb and his enigmatic expression tugged at her imagination. Outlaw. Pirate. Rebel. And like most rebels, he wouldn’t be stupid. He’d simply chosen to play by a different set of rules.
    Like Brianna. Brianna had been a rebel even as a little girl.
    Kit wondered what the biker had been like as a boy. She could see him as a one of those bright busy kids who had a hard time sitting still in elementary school, and he would have grown into one of those bright, sarcastic kids who sat in the back of middle school classrooms, angry, frustrated.
    By the time these troubled kids got to her in high school, it was nearly impossible to reach them. They’d been ignored and bored for so many years that school was nothing more than a holding pen, with teachers as their jailors. These teenagers, who had once had such eager, hopeful, inquisitive minds, had come to loathe books and learning, and eventually they either got kicked out of school or chose to drop out because the system didn’t work for them. Schools weren’t designed to cater to individuals. It wasabout educating the masses…cramming the biggest amount of information into the largest group of people for the least amount of money.
    With a shake of her head, aware that she was procrastinating, Kit turned off her camera and focused on getting the rest of the test scores inputted into her online grade book, hoping to be finished with schoolwork before Fiona arrived.
    Twenty minutes later, she was finally nearing the end of the roster when a motorcycle with a deep, distinctive roar approached the house. She looked up from her computer and stared out the living room window to watch the big burnt-orange bike slowly cruise past.
    He’s come back.
    Kit felt a quivery spike of fear followed by a rush of adrenaline as the bike turned around at San Jose Avenue and slowly cruised back to their house, a corner house hugging Lawn Way and Esplanade.
    With the beach deserted, he had no problem finding a spot in front of the house and nosed into the curb. He turned off the engine and the morning grew still.
    He took off his helmet, swung his leg over the seat, wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, and headed up the lawn toward the front