Welcome to all of you participating in the Log Cabin Christmas blog hop. I’m so pleased to have you here.

Christmas in a log cabin would have been a simple affair. Gifts would have been few – certainly no video games or tablets – and mostly homemade and practical. In Under His Wings, Noah crafts a gift for Adie by hand. Decorations, too, would have been simple, using what they could find – pine boughs, pine cones, berries. If they had a tree, it would have been small. No ten foot tree would have fit in their tiny cabins!

The woman of the house would have made the nicest meal she could with what she had available, perhaps including game her husband shot or a special animal they set aside for the day. Think, “Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…” Adie had access to a ham in Under His Wings, and served sweet potatoes. Her special treat for Noah was a three-layer spice cake. Doesn’t it make your mouth water? Here’s a link to a yummy spice cake, much like Adie would have made.

I’m not sure I can pick one favorite Christmas treat – there are so many! My mom has figured out how to make a lactose free grasshopper pie that’s delicious. Hurry up, Christmas. What’s your favorite Christmas treat?

There’s a contest along with the blog hop. Click here to see the official rules. The prize is great!

Next up on the blog hop is Michelle Ule at Finding God’s Fingerprints in Everyday Life. Pop over there tomorrow. She has something very interesting planned.

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And now, for a special surprise…
the original version of chapter 1 of Under His Wings!

Chapter 1

Camp Twelve, Wisconsin, 1875

Adie O’Connell pictured the farm in her mind, as if she’d dropped in a thousand times before. In a way, she had. The little log cabin would be snug and cozy, with tight chinking and real wood floors. At one end, there would be a big stone fireplace, and a loft with a ladder leading to it. She’d have a red barn, with a milk cow, a chestnut mare, and lots of laying hens. In the garden she’d plant tomatoes, sweet corn, pole beans, and peas.

“Howdy, Miss Adie.”

She jumped a mile, scolding herself for daydreaming again. She’d been knee deep in her fantasy and had walked right over to Derek Owens. He leered at her as tobacco juice ran down his dirty brown beard. His perpetual habits of tobacco use and strong drink had stained his teeth. The husky lumberjack spit a stream onto the floor, then raked his gaze over her slender form.

“Got anything for me this morning?” Derek wiped the back of his huge hand across his mouth. A few of the men seated near him at the large U-shaped table in the mess hall tittered, though no one dared to speak. Cookie, busy in the kitchen, ruled the roost around here and tolerated no talking in his dining room.

Adie drew herself to her full five-foot three-inch height and raised her chin, and thumped a bowl of sausages on the wood plank table. “Here’s your breakfast. Enjoy.” She hoped her curt reply hid her nerves. If she let him know how much he flustered her, he would come on stronger. She’d learned that much in the years she’d worked in lumber camps.

She scurried toward the kitchen to retrieve more food for the hungry throng, not glancing back at Derek.

Cookie met her near the big wood stove, a plate of flapjacks in his hand. “Sure you don’t want me to deliver these sweat pads for you? Don’t want Owens giving you more trouble.”

She took the dish from the slight man with only wisps of white hair left on his head. His huge, gray apron hung past his knees.

“I can handle him.” She smiled, loving this man who looked out for her.

Cookie wielded his spatula. “You let me know. I can give him what not and he won’t bother you.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She chuckled as she pushed the swinging café doors open with her shoulder.

She paid better attention to where Derek was when she stepped into the dining room this time. She walked a wide arc around him, and set the plate of pancakes on the far side of the table, not bothering to push them his way.

Derek winked at her, sending a shiver down her spine. “Hey, Adie, I sure could use some of what you got down there.”

Her hands trembled, and she wiped them on her white apron, hoping to conceal their trembling. “Boys, please pass Mr. Owens some pancakes and maple syrup.”

Derek sneered. “Why don’t you bring it down here yourself?”

One of the jacks pounded his fist on the table. “Enough, Owens. Treat Miss O’Connell like a lady and leave her alone.”

Adie recognized the tall, broad man with eyes the color of the syrup. Everyone called him “Preacher Man” because he didn’t cuss, didn’t carouse, didn’t womanize, and wanted to go to seminary. The moniker stuck. In fact, in the two weeks he’d been in the logging camp, she couldn’t recall hearing his given name.

Derek hefted his bulk from the long bench and stood, leaning on his knuckles on the table. “What you going to do to make me?”

She feared Preacher Man’s interference would make matters worse. She had enough experience following her father to the camps in the past seven years to know men like Derek Owens didn’t cater to being told what to do. He might escalate his advances to spite the man.

Preacher Man rose to his feet, a head taller than Derek. “I’m asking you to be a gentleman and mind your manners. Remember what your Mama taught you.”

Wrong answer.

“I’ll teach you what I do to a mongrel like you.”

Adie knew fisticuffs would ensue, so she retreated to the safety of the kitchen, desiring not to land in the middle of the mea lay. If only Preacher Man had kept his mouth shut.

***

Noah Mitchell steeled himself for the blow to come. He’d heightened Derek’s wrath by opening his mouth to protect Adie and diffuse the situation. In the end, he’d made a mess of things.

He wouldn’t fight back, but turn the other cheek as the Lord commanded. He came here to earn money to go to seminary. Several winters of work might pass before he saved enough, but he would go. In the meantime, he wanted to be a Christian example to the rough, heathen men in the camp.

Around him, the lumberjacks cheered on Derek, their champion. Hoots and hollers echoed off the mess hall’s log walls. Roars of approval swelled around Noah as Derek faced him. He swallowed hard, wishing the bully would get it over with. He closed his eyes. He could smell Derek’s fetid breath. He locked his knees and braced himself for the pain.

Why had he made an enemy of such a man?

All at once the room fell silent. Men muttered and he heard them shuffle to their seats.

Someone clapped him on the back in greeting. “Morning, Preacher Man.”

Noah dared to open one eye.

Quinn O’Connell stood beside him, his jade-green eyes sparkling, a grin spreading across his face. Old enough to have fathered most of these men, nevertheless he was as broad as any jack and as strong.

Quinn’s wild, unkempt hair made him appear a bit rough around the edges, but Noah hadn’t been fooled. Quinn held a fierce love for his daughter and all that concerned her. The man had a soft heart.

Quinn commanded respect, too, as evidenced by the scurrying of the men around them.

“What’s going on? When I came in, Owens looked about to kill you.” Quinn spoke softly as he and Noah took their seats next to each other on the rough benches.

“He may have, if you hadn’t arrived.” He sat down, his knees suddenly weak.

“Did he bother my daughter again?”

Noah shrugged, not wanting to see a fight break out between Owens and Quinn. The older man wouldn’t stand a chance. “I took care of it. He’ll leave her be from now on.”

Adie’s father growled. “I’ll make sure he keeps his distance.”

“Please, don’t.”

“I won’t hurt him. Not now, anyway.” Quinn spun around in his seat and clomped to the other end of the long table.

Noah could do nothing more than watch the older man confront the burly lumberjack. Owens spat, then nodded. He may have acquiesced for now, but Noah didn’t miss the fire burning in his dark eyes.

Quinn made it halfway back to his place at the table when Adie appeared from the kitchen, a steaming coffee pot in her slender hand. Noah watched, entranced, as she sashayed over to her father, stood on her tiptoes, and planted a peck on his hairy cheek.

The seasoned woodsman squeezed her and whispered in her ear. The way she gazed at him caused Noah’s heart to beat faster than two jacks’ sawing.

He’d better watch out. If Quinn knew how Adie affected him, Quinn would send him to the floor instead of Derek Owens. Make no mistake, the man was possessive of his daughter. He tolerated no coarse talk about her and shot dangerous looks at anyone who dared to come within ten feet of her.

Noah couldn’t help but stare at the beautiful young woman. Locks of curly red hair fell about her face as she poured coffee. Her eyes, described by her father as the color of the hills of Ireland, danced in delight as Quinn teased her. Noah would give every penny of his seminary savings if she would smile at him with those full, red lips.

No, he needed a long walk in the crisp November pre-dawn. He jumped from his spot at the table, ashamed of himself. He had no right to be thinking about Adie O’Connell in such a way.

“Thank you.”

He turned and stared into her amazing green eyes.

She smiled her smile at him. “I appreciate the way you stepped in with Derek, but you didn’t need to. He’s not a problem for me.”

“You’re, uh, welcome.” A smattering a red freckles crossed the bridge of her upturned nose. He couldn’t bear the thought of Owens laying a hand on her. “But don’t underestimate him.”

Quinn stepped beside his daughter. “He won’t hurt her.”

Noah peered at Owens from the corner of his eye. The man scowled and he didn’t need to step into the Wisconsin winter to notice a chill in the air.

***

Noah and Quinn pulled the crosscut saw between them in an easy rhythm. Around them the music of other saws rang, punctuated by the staccato hammering of axes. The towering white pine they worked to fell had already been notched by an axe on one side. Now they labored at sawing it on the opposite side, a little above the gash. Wedges were inserted from time to time to cause the tree to fall.

“I appreciate the way you took care of Adie.” Quinn wiped the back of his arm across his forehead. Temperatures may be below freezing, but the men worked up a sweat.

“My pleasure.” And Noah meant it.

“I hate what this life is doing to her. I’ve dragged her from camp to camp in the winter and from odd job to odd job in the summer for the past seven years. It’s not been easy. She’s done her share of man’s work without complaining, but I know she’s not fond of it. She’d like to settle down, live in one spot again, but I can’t. Since Claire passed, I can’t stay in one place. She held our family together and helped me be a good father. Without her, I’ve been lost.” He ran a hand through his tousled brown hair.

“Adie loves you. I can see it in the way she looks at you. She doesn’t hold any of this against you.”

The lines around Quinn’s green eyes softened. “Adie’s a good girl, especially to put up with the likes of me.”

“She does more than put up with you.”

Quinn shrugged. “We’d best get back to work. If I rest these old bones too long, I’ll never get going again.”

The men put their hands to the crosscut saw once more, working in silence. In a short amount of time, they had almost completed their chore. The pine would soon fall.

Then a loud crack split the air.

A long, vertical fracture appeared, traversing the trunk and ruining the lumber. Worse, it destabilized the tree. If the jacks couldn’t wedge it hastily, it would fall. And no one could predict where.

Quinn and Noah, along with other men, worked frantically, driving in wedges. The tree groaned.

“She’s going, boys!” Quinn shouted.

Men scattered.

The tree leaned.

Noah watched it descend to earth.

“Quinn!”