In Her Boots Read online

  Advance Praise for

  In Her Boots

  “Heart-warming and complicated and uplifting. I couldn’t put it down, even though I usually prefer books with supernatural goats that eat people.”

  —Jenny Lawson, author of Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things and Broken (In the Best Possible Way)

  “Funny, heartfelt, and unputdownable, In Her Boots is the perfect read, and Rhett/Maggie is the exact heroine we all want to be: strong, vulnerable, and totally relatable. Going home shouldn’t be this tough or this entertaining.”

  —Susan Mallery, author of The Stepsisters

  “Even though her identity as the Modern Pioneer Girl is a secret, Rhett Gallagher is a woman who knows exactly what she wants. But when taking over the family farm once owned by her father and grandmother proves more challenging than expected, Rhett has no choice but to pull herself up by her bootstraps and enlist the help of friends old and new along the way. Witty, charming, and utterly unputdownable, In Her Boots is the perfect reminder that living life on our own terms might just be what it’s all about. Once again, KJ Dell’Antonia has knocked it out of the park with a story that will work its way right into readers’ hearts.”

  —Kristy Woodson Harvey, author of Under the Southern Sky

  “What can be better than a book that surprises and delights you on every page, and yet at the same time speaks so clearly to the familiar joys—and challenges—of friendship, family, and self-discovery? It’s all there in KJ Dell’Antonia’s charming In Her Boots, the story of a woman, a farm, a mini-pony, and the lovable cast of characters that push her—often against her will—toward her truest, best self. You’ll gobble this one up and then push it on your best friend—and she’ll love you for it!”

  —Kelly Harms, author of The Seven Day Switch

  “In Her Boots is such a charming, funny, original story that I wished it were a blanket I could wrap myself in. Rhett is a unique heroine, the likes of which I haven’t come across in contemporary fiction before, and I felt like I was tagging along with a close friend as I went along on her journey. KJ Dell’Antonia is a fabulous writer, and In Her Boots is expertly plotted and full of the perfect little details that make a book sing.”

  —Elyssa Friedland, author of Last Summer at the Golden Hotel

  “Both peppy and heartfelt, In Her Boots is a tender page-turning romp about running from both your past and your truth, only to discover that, just like real life, you can only run for so long before it’s time to turn back home.”

  —Allison Winn Scotch, author of Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing

  “In Her Boots is a modern, bighearted, laugh-out-loud-funny novel that reminds us that the only way to find true connection, friendship, and belonging is to fully be ourselves. A joy to read from page one all the way to the very end.”

  —Louise Miller, author of The Late Bloomers’ Club and The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living

  “Full of quirky twists and heartfelt humor, In Her Boots is a wildly entertaining page-turner about forging your own path and finding your way home again.”

  —Virginia Kantra, author of Meg & Jo

  Also by KJ Dell’Antonia

  Fiction

  The Chicken Sisters

  Nonfiction

  How to Be a Happier Parent

  Reading with Babies, Toddlers & Twos

  (with Susan Straub)

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2022 by KJ Dell’Antonia

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Dell’Antonia, K. J., author.

  Title: In her boots / KJ Dell’Antonia.

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2022]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2022006328 (print) | LCCN 2022006329 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593331507 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593331514 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3604.E444637 I52 2022 (print) | LCC PS3604.E444637 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220224

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006328

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006329

  Cover design and illustration: Kimberly Glyder

  Book design by Katy Riegel, adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_6.0_140348893_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Advance Praise for In Her Boots

  Also by KJ Dell’Antonia

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. A Passport

  2. Pluck

  3. Approval

  4. De-plucked

  5. A Superhero Alter Ego

  6. A Man

  7. Permission

  8. A Plan

  9. Regrets

  10. Approval Again

  11. Strong Arms

  12. Someone Else’s Plan

  13. A Degree in Farm Life

  14. A Work Ethic

  15. Permission

  16. Permission Denied

  17. Approval Can Be Won

  18. A Man with a Work Ethic

  19. Approval Can Be Won (Again)

  20. Regrets

  21. Permission

  22. A New Plan

  23. A Man’s Approval

  24. A Sure Thing

  25. A Different Man

  26. Approval

  27. A Plan Gone Wrong

  28. A Superhero Alter Ego

  29. Regrets

  30. A Passport

  31. Permission

  32. Your Middle Finger

  33. Regrets

  34. Money

  35. Permission

  36. Approval

  37. Permission

  Epilogue: One Year (and a Bit) Later

  Acknowledgments

  Readers Guide

  About the Author

  To Judi, who would totally go on the Today show for me

  1

  A Passport

  I tried everything possible to avoid my own thoughts on the flight home, and none of it worked. The movie selection reminded me of nights with my grandmother, who loved her basic cable and would happily settle in for any romance Lifetime had to offer. The voice in the meditation app lulled me into a doze, until I jerked myself awake from a dream of my father reading me to sleep with The Essential Whole Earth Catalog. The book I’d chosen for the flight was the worst of all, a memoir by an English sheep farmer about his attachment to the place where he was raised. I thought it would help me wrap my brain around what lay ahead. Instead, the author landed a solid punch to my gut within the first few pages. People who went away ceased to belong, he wrote; they changed and could never really come back.

  I shut my reading app and determinedly launched a game of Candy Crush. I’d
gone away wanting to change, and I had, or at least part of me had. But I’d always meant to come back before it was too late.

  The flight attendant handed me a package of Oreo alfajores and I leaned down to tuck it into the pocket of my backpack for Grandma Bee before I remembered there was no one to save it for. Instead, I ate them myself and barely tasted them, staring out over the clouds, concentrating on feeling nothing, not when the Manhattan skyline came into view, not when my fellow passengers broke into applause as the wheels touched down on the runway. I was good at pretending to be tougher and stronger than I was. Not just good. I was a pro.

  I was playing my part perfectly when the border control agent unexpectedly broke through my determination to pretend this was just any trip.

  “Welcome home,” he said, handing me my well-worn blue passport along with my nothing-to-declare paperwork.

  Home. I turned away quickly, wiping a stinging from the corner of my eyes that could have been from anything. Dust. Pollen. The sharp itch of my new tattoo, a tiny bumblebee on my upper arm in honor of the grandmother who raised me but wouldn’t be waiting to greet me when I finally made my way to our farm in New Hampshire. The farm where I learned that animals were more reliable than people. The farm that gave me the skills I needed to make it in the real world, like focusing on the job even when it’s raining so hard you can barely see the fence you’re fixing or shaking it off when a cow’s just knocked you flat on your butt, then getting up and showing that cow who’s in charge. My farm, now. I’d be there within twenty-four hours. Then I could cry.

  With no luggage to claim, I was outside JFK within minutes, shaking off unwanted emotion and opening my eyes wide to absorb the light and set my internal clock for another season. I’d left behind a mild fall in Argentina. Here, the sharp greens of spring had already mellowed into a glorious May. In a minute I’d plunge back into the crazy and head for the AirTrain and then the subway to Brooklyn and my best friend Jasmine’s fancy brownstone, but first I needed a little air, even the exhaust-filled version offered by the ocean of concrete and tarmac that surrounded me. At least there were no mosquitoes.

  But there were plenty of distractions, and I welcomed them, even the two men yelling at each other over a stalled sedan parked on the side of the access road.

  “Why won’t it start?” The shorter of the two, and, based on his Wall Street casual uniform of khakis and button-down, the obvious passenger, sounded to me as if he might have asked that same question more than once already.

  The other, long and sideburned in the manner of the hipster part-time driver, part-time whatever–else–New York–had–to–offer, stared down into the open hood as though he hoped the answer might be written there.

  “I don’t know, man. It was fine on the way here.” Hipster driver glanced up nervously at the approaching security guard. “This isn’t where I was supposed to pick you up either. I’m going to get a ticket.”

  “You can’t stop here,” the officer said, taking out her radio. “I’m going to have to have you towed.”

  Oof. That tow fee would be no joke. I hesitated—this might be my chance at a far cushier ride into town than that offered by public transport. If I had the cojones to pull it off.

  “Why don’t you help him start it?” the would-be passenger demanded angrily. He looked the officer up and down. “That’s what a real cop would do. I don’t know why they let you even have this job if all you can do is call for help.”

  That’s it, I’d heard enough. You see a sexist jerk, said the voice of the Modern Pioneer Girl in my mind. I see a teaching opportunity. The mechanical part would be easy. It was the human element that always made me anxious. But almost twenty years of travel and job-hopping overseas had taught me tricks—like what I thought of as my alter ego, the Modern Pioneer Girl—for overcoming those fears. I’d done it for so long it was almost second nature.

  Almost.

  Channeling my alter ego’s confidence, I strolled up to the open hood and slid my backpack off my shoulders. “What seems to be the problem here, gentlemen?”

  Business guy snorted with distaste as he took me in. Too tall, with my lanky body clad in the nondescript jeans–and–T-shirt uniform of backpackers everywhere, long, faded red braids stringing out from under my baseball cap. Too old, at forty, too wrinkly from the sun. Too not–New York for the likes of him.

  I met his eyes with an intentionally blank face. I knew I didn’t look like much. I didn’t look like someone who could rig a sail in a storm, round up a thousand cattle from the back of a horse, or, of more interest to him in this moment, hot-wire a truck when my boss dropped the keys somewhere along the trail of a six-mile mushroom-foraging hike. I certainly didn’t look like someone who would write a book about those things and find myself newly beloved by an entire generation of would-be feminist adventurers—just in time for the life I’d built to crumble quietly into the dirt of the Patagonian ranch I’d had to leave behind.

  That last thought made it hard to face him down, this anonymous dude who was probably compensating for some insecurities of his own. But that was no excuse for his behavior. I stood my ground, refusing to drop my eyes. More people know my name than he’ll ever meet, I reminded myself.

  Well, sort of.

  He rolled his eyes and stepped aside, taking out his phone, probably to call another ride and leave the driver to his fate.

  There was nothing the Modern Pioneer Girl loved more than being underestimated. I joined the driver in looking under the hood. “How old’s your battery?”

  “Pretty new,” he said, clasping his pale hands together nervously. “Plus, I just drove here and turned off the engine.”

  “Yeah, it’s probably not that.” Second–most likely thing, then. I leaned in, avoiding the hot engine, and opened the fuse box. Got it in one. Driver guy didn’t look likely to have a spare fuse, though, and this was a pretty old car, so there were none in the fuse box.

  My eye fell on the security officer, radio in hand, her hair pulled tightly into a bun at the back of her neck, and I knew I had this. I turned to the driver. “If I fix it, will you give me a ride into Brooklyn? I don’t care what you do with this guy.”

  “Deal,” the driver said. “But I can’t leave him here. He’ll screw my star rating.”

  “Whatever,” I said, and turned to the officer. “Can I have three minutes?”

  She nodded, and I pointed to her bun. “And one of the pins in your hair?”

  That made the officer grin. She reached back and handed me exactly what I was hoping for, an open-ended hairpin. “Set a timer,” I said, feeling more cheerful than I had in days. I slid the burnt fuse out, then rigged up the hairpin to complete the circuit, bending it to anchor it tightly. “Okay, try to start it.”

  The driver slid into the car, turned the key, and gave it a little gas, and after the faintest hesitation—just enough to allow the business guy to give me a triumphant look—the engine turned over.

  The driver cheered, and the officer held up her hand to offer me a high five. “Two minutes, sister,” she said.

  I grabbed my backpack. “Can I put this in the trunk?” The driver nodded and opened it as the businessman, avoiding eye contact, hurriedly climbed into the back. “I’ll sit up front with you, okay? I don’t think Smiley here likes me very much.”

  2

  Pluck

  Less than an hour later, the driver sternly instructed to get a real fuse as soon as possible if he didn’t want a much more expensive repair, I was standing on Jasmine’s stoop in Brooklyn, fist poised to knock. The door opened before my knuckles even grazed the gleaming red wood. Jasmine burst out onto the stoop, still in the chef’s pants and tank top she must have worn to her job at the Empty Donut and insanely skinny for someone who made a living baking desserts. She threw her arms around me. “Rhett! You’re here!”

  Jas pulled me in tight, and all t
he thoughts I’d been holding in washed over me. She held me, hugging and patting as I gulped and hiccuped in a way I would do with no one but her, saying the words no one else had said to me since I’d heard about my grandmother’s death.

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, and I nodded into her shoulder and didn’t even try to talk. I’d been alone every minute since I got the news. More than alone. Alone in a crowd, alone in a country I thought I’d made my own, alone and hiking hard and fast and steep and trying not to beat myself up for breaking my own rule and letting another guy get close enough to crush me when he turned out to be as bad as the rest.

  It took a minute, but after a couple of deep breaths I straightened up.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m okay, I really am. I’ll be okay.”

  Jas gave me a questioning look but I managed a smile. She’d know I wasn’t ready to talk about it, now or maybe ever. She grinned back, and suddenly I really did feel happier. She held out her phone with one arm and wrapped the other around my shoulder. “Record this moment?”

  I nodded, and she took a selfie of our faces squished together, our eyes a little red but both of us looking delighted to be reunited. That was about all our faces had in common. As much as I resisted comparing my hat hair, wrinkles, and dark spots with her blond topknot and glowing, dermatologically enhanced perfection, I was. I always did, for our first ten minutes together—and then it would pass and she’d just be my old friend again, though this version of her demanded far more maintenance on her part.

  Personally I missed the old burger-and-fries Jas, but I tried not to say so too often.

  “That’s for the MPG’s Instagram,” she said in a teasing tone, surveying the image. “We have to mark your arrival. The MPG is in the house.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, following her through the doorway and past the staircase and kitchen out to the light-filled living room. “The Modern Pioneer Girl is a woman of mystery.” I stopped short as I realized that Jasmine’s husband, Zale, was stretched out on one of the white couches, the shoulders and biceps he worked so hard on set off as always by a black muscle tee emblazoned with the logo of the chain of gyms he’d named after himself, Zale’s Powerhouse Fitness.