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PROLOGUE – December 24th, 1863

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It was Christmas eve and Ben Cartwright couldn't sleep.

He'd lain awake tossing and turning for the last hour or so and had finally come to the conclusion that, if he didn't do something about it and soon, he was going to lay there the whole night. So, after putting on his burgundy robe and sliding his bare feet into his slippers, the rancher left his room behind and headed for the stairs, intending to make his way to the kitchen for a warm glass of milk – and maybe a few of those chocolate fudge cookies Hop Sing had baked for the holiday. Ben chuckled to himself as his feet hit the great room floor.

With three boys in the house, it would probably be his only chance to get one!

As Ben stood there thinking about his sons and how much he loved them, and imagined their faces as they opened the presents he had hand-selected for each one of them, an unexpected beam of moonlight penetrated the window in the dining room. It struck the polished surface of the table and then moved on, briefly touching Marie's striped settee before settling on the round table that held his decanter and four brandy snifters. Hop Sing must have removed the chess set and placed it there before he went to bed, knowing he would want it for tomorrow's celebration. Ben smiled as he noted the decanter had been filled to the brim. His old friend knew he liked nothing better than a fine aged brandy. Always had.

The older man's smile faded with the light.

Once upon a time he had liked it too much.

Pointing his feet toward the decanter rather than the kitchen, Ben crossed over to the table. When he arrived, he placed his hand on the stopper and stared at the amber liquid. He was remembering – remembering a time when he had almost lost himself and, truth be told, nearly lost his youngest son as well. Not that Joseph's life had been in danger. At least, not in the usual way. But the threat was there and he hadn't even noticed.

He'd been too busy wallowing in self-pity and cursing the world.

Ben sniffed as he teared up and then continued on to his desk. Hanging one hip on its edge, he reached for his late wife's portrait – his third wife – and gazed at her beautiful face. Marie was forever young, frozen in time before the snow lay upon the rose. The rancher reached out to touch her face and then turned his attention to the ten-foot gaily decorated fir tree that dominated the great room. He smiled at the myriad decorations, most of them handmade by his sons, and then lifted his eyes to its pinnacle. The yellow-haired angel, Anne, was there, watching over them as she had for a little more than fifteen years. Adam was thirty-two. Hoss, twenty-six. And Joseph – dear Joseph – had just turned twenty. Ben glanced at Marie again, thinking how proud she would have been to see what a fine young man her son had grown to be, and then he returned her portrait to the desk. Sticking his hands in his pockets, the rancher rose and walked over to the tree and looked up. Anne smiled down on him. It was the family tradition that Joseph was the one who would put her in place. The antics over the years that had occasioned were legendary. Still, there was a reason – a very important reason that his youngest was so honored.

Without Anne – without his mother's angel – Marie's beloved Joseph might have grown into a very different kind of man.

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ONE - Spring 1847

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Ben Cartwright stood outside of his youngest's room, listening. The boy's mother had put him to sleep sometime before, but as he passed his son's bedroom on the way to the kitchen, he heard Little Joe laughing. The sound had puzzled him and so he had stopped, sure that at least one of Joseph's older brothers' had sneaked into his room and he would hear their voices as well, but there was nothing.

Nothing but that laugh.

The four-year-old had just moved to his own room a month or so before. On his birthday Joseph had announced that he was 'all growed up' and wasn't a baby anymore. Much to his mother's dismay, he had begun to resist her hug and kisses, stating flatly that 'Hoss and Adam don't get no kisses 'fore they goes to bed.'

A word in his elder brothers' ears had quickly dispelled that notion and set everything right in the Cartwright household again.

Still, to honor the little boy's desire to be 'all growed up', he had talked Marie into allowing the boy to have his own room. His wife had been terrified at first. Joseph was known to wander now and then during the night. He wasn't quite sure the boy was actually sleep-waking, though that was what Paul Martin labeled it. Nevertheless, they had made it a habit to lock the boy's door once they put him to bed.

Ben glanced at the key hanging off the lamp next to his son's bedroom door. They kept it handy in case of an emergency. As another peal of laughter indicated the little boy was still awake, he decided to use it.

With a quiet click and a shove, the heavy wooden door opened. It was quite dark inside as the room was lit only by the pale sliver of a moon that shone through the boy's window and a few companion stars. One winked at him as he stepped into the room, glowing brightly for just a moment before disappearing.

Several heartbeats later a small voice asked, "Is I in trouble, Papa?"

Ben hid his smile. "Should you be, young man?"

His son stirred on the bed and sat up. Joseph was anchored in the middle of the usual tempest of linens, indicating he had been asleep at some point. As he watched his son's curly head appeared, framed by the window in the opposite wall.

The sight of those glorious curls always brought a smile.

There was a moment of silence before he spoke. "I's sorry, Papa. I know'd I shouldn't have been playin', but she asked and I had to."

Ben's dark brows popped. "She?"

The curly head bobbed. "You told me it ain't polite to refuse a lady."

Crossing to the bed, the older man took a seat on it and looked at his child. Joseph's little face was so serious.

"No," he agreed. "No, it's not. Was there...a lady in here?"

Little Joe's eyes were bright in the darkness. He nodded again, solemnly. "Yes, sir. A beautiful lady."

"Oh, so you could see her in the dark?"

His son grinned. "On account of she glowed all on her own!"

Ben ran a hand over his face. "She...glowed, did she?" The older man nodded toward the window. "Perhaps the moonlight...?"

Joseph's smile melted into a frown. "No, sir. She glowed from the inside out!"

Obviously, the boy had been dreaming and just didn't know it.

"So, this beautiful lady. She came to play with you?"

"Yes, sir. I told her I was tired, but she said she wanted to stay 'cause tonight was important." As if to prove his point, his young son yawned. "But since she was a lady I had to be –"

"A gentleman?"

"Uh-huh."

Ben stared at the boy a moment and then decided enough was enough. "How about we get you settled in, and then you can tell me more about her."

Joseph fidgeted with the linens wrapped around his skinny frame. "I been fightin' my covers again."

"I can see that." He smiled. "I'll just straighten them out first. How does that sound?"

"Real good, Papa."

It took a couple of minutes. He had Joseph sit on the chair by his bed while he pulled and tucked his covers, all the while keeping an eye on the little boy to make sure he didn't drop off and – drop off. When he was done, Ben picked his son up and – after giving him a hug – tucked him in and under and drew the covers up to his chin.

Then he sat in the chair.

"Now, Joseph, tell me more about this lady. What does she look like?"

"She looks like Mama," his son said, so quickly it startled him. "Only older."

"Oh? How can you tell she's older?"

"Her hair's yellow, but it's the color of Hop Sing's pans here just like yours." Joe touched his temple. "So she's gotta be old."

Out of the mouths of babes.

"I see, and why did she want to stay – even though you told her you were tired?"

"She said she had something she wanted to give me."

"Did she? And what was that?"

Little Joe screwed up his face. Then he shrugged. "All she did was tickle me and make me laugh."

As he had heard. "That was it?"

"Uh huh. Then she gave me a big old bear hug and told me somethin' else, and then told me to remember it."

He was intrigued. "And what was it you were to remember?"

Joe sat up in his bed again and spoke as if he was reciting his sums. "That laughter is the language of God and that, with it, we can all live happily ever after."

Ah.

The imagination of a child.

"Well, young man," he said, rising, "now that you have your gift – and your laugh – I think it's high time you go to sleep." Leaning in, Ben planted a kiss on his son's forehead. "Lay down now. Good night."

Little Joe's tiny fingers closed on the coverlet as he rolled over to one side. "Night, Papa."

Ben had headed for the door, but stopped as his small son called him back. Taking a step toward the bed, he asked, "What is it, Joseph?"

"I love you, Papa."

A smile lit his face. "I love you too, Joseph. Now get some sleep."

"Pa..."

Ben stifled a sigh. With Joseph, it was inevitable that the 'goodnight' ritual take at least five minutes.

"What is it now?"

He was expecting the usual request for a drink or a second trip to the privy. He was not expecting the answer her got.

"The pretty lady said to tell you she had a gift for you too."

Ben blinked. "A gift for me?"

Joseph nodded. "She said it would be under the Christmas tree."

The older man frowned. It was spring. Christmas was over six months away.

What in the world had turned the boy's thought to that?

"Well, I will be sure to remember. And if I don't, you remind me. All right?"

"Mm..hmm..."

Then, there was silence.

At last.

Ben chuckled to himself as he headed out the door and toward the staircase. A gift for him from an unknown shining and beautiful lady with yellow hair touched by the silver of Hop Sing's pans.

What would the child think of next?

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The next day flew like the hooves of his wife's beloved black stallion. The spring round-up was near and it had never been more important than this year. The last winter had been harsh and they had emerged from it in want – oh, not nearly so great a want as he had known after Adam's mother had died and the two of them had struck out for the West – but enough that he feared he would not be able to keep Marie in the style to which she was accustomed. His wife had grown furious with him when he had hinted at his purpose, accusing him of treating her like one of the fragile porcelain figurines she kept sitting on the what-knot shelf in the great room. Marie told him she would be perfectly happy wearing rags and eating off of treenware dishes if she had him and her boys at her side.

He knew she meant it too.

Still, it did his heart good to shower her with things as beautiful as she was; to...pamper her. God had gifted him with a precious treasure when he had met and married Marie De Marigny. And then he had lavished even more upon him in the gift of their son. Ben glanced at his feet where the boy sat playing quietly – for once – with the set of handsome wooden horses his mother had ordered for him from France. If there was one thing Joseph loved – maybe more than his mother – it was horses. Joseph took to the fine fierce animals like a fish to water which, he had to admit, had been a bone of contention between him and Marie at times. She often took the boy down to the corral to watch his brothers and the few hands they had work with the wild, free-spirited animals. He thought Joseph was too young. He was afraid the boy would get it into his head that he was old enough to do what his brothers did.

Marie had laughed the first time he'd put words to his unease – that lovely, lilting, tinkling laugh she had. She called him a 'inquiétude verrue' or a worry wart. 'Does the Bible not say,' his beautiful wife went on, 'that worry cannot add one hair to your head or a day to your life, mon Cherie?"

Ben chuckled.

Yes, it did. And – though he hated to admit it – it had turned more than a few of them silver.

The rancher felt a tug on his pants' leg. He looked down to find his young son's cherubic face looking up at him.

"Yes, Joseph?"

"When will Mama be home?"

When indeed? Marie had gone to visit a neighbor; riding away on that fast-flying thoroughbred of hers. He had qualms about that horse, though the hands he'd questioned said it was a good horse, if somewhat skittish. He considered it too big for his wife's small frame.

Though not too big for her spirit.

Ben rose and moved into the great room so he could see the tall case clock by the door. It was about 4:30. Hop Sing insisted on dinner at 6:00 and Marie would need time to change.

"Any minute," he assured his son.

"The pretty lady told me last night to give Mama a big hug and a kiss today before she left," his son said as he went back to playing with his horses.

"The pretty lady?" For a moment Ben was stumped. Then, he remembered Little Joe's sometimes nocturnal visitor.

The boy nodded without looking up. "She was sad."

"Oh? And why is that?"

Joe shrugged and then looked right at him. "She told me to tell you to remember to look for that gift."

Ben frowned and opened his mouth to ask his son what he was talking about.

That was the moment when his world turned upside-down.

He heard a horse snort and blow and his wife's voice scolding it. Adam called out something. The door opened – he didn't know how – and he saw his beloved astride that damn horse. The black was backing up and bucking. Rearing. Marie was fighting for control. She almost had it.

It was then that he realized what had caused the door to open.

Joseph was running toward his mama.

Ben's eyes locked with his wife's. There was terror in them – and regret. She pulled the horse's reins sharply to the left. The animal fought against her, tossing its head from side to side, shrieking and rearing; its hooves striking out.

There was another shout and a blur of motion. Adam swooped in like a falcon on the chase. He caught hold of his brother on the run and the two of them tumbled out of danger.

And then there was another sound; a sound he would never forget. Later, he would recognize it as the noise of a nearly two-ton weight animal striking the ground.

At that moment he felt it as a clap of thunder.

A second later he was on his knees at his dying wife's side.

Marie's emerald green eyes fastened on his. "Joseph...?"she asked through her pain.

"Safe," he said as he clasped her gloved hand. It was waving in the air as if seeking something out of reach.

Marie nodded and then her back arched – as much as it could with the weight of the horse atop her. She grimaced, breaking his heart, and then – unexpectedly – smiled. The most beautiful, heartfelt smile.

"Marie?" he pleaded.

Her eyes closed as if she was gathering strength, and then his beautiful wife looked right at him.

"Remember, mon cherie," she breathed.

And was gone.