Clutter

By Donna Butler

Misty is a wild, hard partying free spirit- an embarrassment to the Reece family, the wealthy relatives who adopted her after her mother's brutal death. When her cousin Kitty's perfect life is destroyed by tragedy, the Reece's, in an act of desperation, turn to Misty to clean up the mess. Everyone knows how close she is to Kitty, regardless of their vastly different lifestyles. But no one would ever imagine the battle that awaits her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donna Butler
• Release date: Feb 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458149633

Book preview

Clutter

By

Donna Butler

Copyright 2013 Donna Butler

Smashwords Edition

http://donnabutler.com

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CHAPTER ONE

They were married on a day so heart wrenchingly beautiful that several of the wedding guests were reminded of what a blessing it was to be alive.

Naturally Kitty chose June. Early June in Kansas City was reliably comfortable, colorful and clear. As long as the pesky tornados chose somewhere else to ravage, of course. The temperature on that picturesque Saturday in June was a refreshing seventy-eight degrees. None of the three hundred guests or the sixteen members of the wedding party, or the bride, resplendent in Vera Wang, were ever in danger of breaking a sweat.

There was one exception, but Misty arrived sweaty. And late.

To her dismay, the taxi driver refused to even try to squeeze the cab down the long, gravel driveway that lead to the mansion. Sorry, ma’am. Can’t risk it.

Seriously, dude? Check out the heels I’m wearing. You expect me to stumble all the way to the house or whatever the hell that is?

It’s the old Finley mansion, ma’am. It’s historic. Nobody lives there. They rent it out for weddings and so on.

"Really? Wow. What a coincidence. I’m here for a wedding. Guess this nasty pink dress didn’t give it away, huh?"

Looks more like what they call coral to me.

Whatever. I can’t walk that far!

And I can’t risk scraping any of those cars, ma’am. There’s not a one of them costs less than fifty grand. It’s too narrow. I’m sorry.

Misty pulled a crumpled twenty from her purse and threw it onto the front seat of the cab. Kiss my ass, she said as she slammed the door. With a sigh, she kicked off her high heels and stepped onto the lawn to gauge the dampness. The cool morning dew actually felt good on her feet, which were still sore from last night’s dancing. Last night was a bad idea, she thought as she bent down to pick up her shoes. She should have gone straight home after the wedding rehearsal and taken her fake ID and thirst for mischief with her. Just that simple act of bending was enough to make her want to hurl. She turned to give the taxi driver one last dirty look as he merged onto the main road. Then she directed her attention to the task at hand.

The house lay straight ahead, maybe three hundred feet away, partially hidden by several huge oaks that looked old enough to have witnessed the passage of wagon trains down the Santa Fe Trail two centuries ago. To her left, at maybe half the distance of the house stood a huge white tent. Beyond that, a couple hundred guests milled about. There were half a dozen men in that tent. Their uniforms- white shirts and black slacks- reminded her how thirsty she was. She could kill for a glass of water.

She was panting by the time she reached the tent, and was far too irritable to apologize to the young Mexican man who looked startled when she swiped a bottle of water from a cooler partially hidden beneath a table, clearly placed there for the workers. "I’m sure you’ll steal a beer later," she muttered. Still in her bare feet, she raised the bottle of water to her lips and drank greedily, emptying the bottle without pausing. Not wanting to be stuck with it, she left the crumpled bottle on one of the tables, beside a stack of white plates. Then she slipped on her shoes and eyed the guests resentfully. If they weren’t all so stuck up, she wouldn’t have to keep her shoes on.

She took a few steps towards the house and swayed unsteadily. Man, she hated when that happened. Every now and then, after a night of hard drinking, a glass of water the next morning made her tipsy, as though it liquefied the remaining fumes.

Hey, Misty! They’re all looking for you up at the house.

It was Henry, one of her cousins from the hick side of the family. That would be Aunt Caroline’s side. Henry’s family still lived out in the boonies in Kansas, south of Lawrence and only came to town once a month to buy groceries. Misty thought they were too insane to live. Is Aunt Caroline pissed?

Henry nodded. His plump cheeks flushed as he smiled conspiratorially. She and Kitty were fighting about it. Aunt Caroline was saying you were late on purpose and Kitty kept saying no way. You must have had car trouble or something. Then Aunt Caroline wanted to know why you couldn’t have called someone.

Good Lord. You’re worse than some gossipy woman. Leave me alone now so I can think. She checked her watch. It was nine thirty. The really old guests, those in spitting distance of death’s door, were already being seated. It would take a miracle to get her hair and makeup done in twenty-five minutes. Aunt Caroline was going to tear her a new one.

With a sigh of resignation, she turned and headed towards the house.

She was panting by the time she made it around to the back entrance, where she had hoped to sneak in unnoticed, but there was group of guys back there, smoking. Friends and family of the groom, she guessed, because they were black.

Aunt Caroline loved to tell people how she just adored Malcolm. As though that proved she was liberal and cool. Before Kitty brought him home for dinner, Misty had never seen anyone black set foot inside their house, except for Zora, Malcolm’s sister, who was also Kitty’s best friend. And Zora never came over that often because Kitty preferred to go to Zora’s house.

The truth was, Aunt Caroline lived to impress people with how nice she was. That was why she adopted Misty when Caroline’s sister Ivy could no longer care for her.

At the time, Kitty was eight years old. Her brother, Kyle was eleven. Caroline and Calvin Reece already had the perfect family, living in a perfect four bedroom, Tudor style home in the perfect neighborhood. Calvin Reece was CEO of a thriving bank, so it made sense that Caroline was in a generous mood the day she had to post bail for her sister, Ivy who had been arrested for public drunkenness. Upon entering Ivy’s apartment for the first time in years, she took one look at the little girl nearly buried beneath the squalor and insisted on taking her. She’s in danger here, Ivy, Carolyn had said. Calvin and I can afford dentists and school clothes and even college if she wants.

At two years old, Misty went from Skid Row to Easy Street. Two weeks later, Ivy was found dead in an alley behind a night club. Aunt Caroline insisted on a closed coffin. Judging from that and other whispered bits of information, Misty came to understand, as she got older, that her mother had died violently.

She would have been screwed without Aunt Caroline, who’d been the only mother she remembered. As promised, she’d looked after her like one of her own. And yet, to Misty, it seemed forced. For show, somehow, even when no one else was looking.

She would have loved to have bummed a cigarette off one of the guys, but instead she smiled, nodded and stepped into the space they made for her and into the house.

It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the gloomy hallway. Once they had,