Rachel didn't sleep a wink that night. Instead, she spent those restless hours tossing and turning while her thoughts wandered and led her to think of Sam. She loved him; she didn't know the how or the why, but she loved him. It was almost as if she was drawn to him by some unexplainable cosmic force. She had to tell him. She had to let her feelings out, or she would be plagued with more sleepless nights.

When the sun rose, Rachel knew that Sam would be waking up to start his morning chores. Still in her nightdress and slippers, she ran down to his shed and knocked on the door. When he answered the door a moment later, he wasn't wearing a shirt, and the memories of those muscles pressed up against her back rushed back into her head. She felt her knees go weak. After taking a second to collect herself before she started to speak.

"Farm b . . . Sam," she corrected herself. If she loved him like she knew she did, she should call him by his name. "Sam, I need to talk to you."

"As you wish."

She took his words as permission to continue, so she spoke up once again. "Now this may come as a surprise to you – it surely came as a surprise to me - but I love you. I only just realized it last night, but I'm sure I've loved you for the longest time. Yet the love I felt for you last night can barely hold a candle to the love I feel for you now. With every passing hour, I felt my love growing, and still it grows! Why, my love for you must have doubled in size since I arrived here at your doorstep. I know it may be hard to believe, but it's true. How shall I prove it to you? I know! You know how much I hate taking orders, but if you were to only wish for me to do something for you, I would do it. If you were to ask me to jump, I would ask how high. If you were to ask me to sing, I would ask what song you'd like to hear, and if I didn't know the song, I would learn it and perfect it for you. And if you were to ask me for a kiss? Well, I would kiss you without a moment's hesitation. Just say the word, and I'm yours. I love you, Sam. I love you more than I ever thought I could love another person. Oh dearest Sam. Wonderful Sam. Say that you love me in return for that's all I could ever want from you. Say that you love me and let my heart soar." She stopped talking and waited for his answer. He responded by shutting the door in her face.

As she ran back to her room in tears, Rachel could feel her heart sinking. She had offered all of her love and her whole heart up to him, and he had crushed it all within a few seconds. Collapsing on her bed, she vowed to never admit her feelings of true love ever again, and she cursed Sam for humiliating her like that.

She soon fell asleep not wanting to deal with the day and hoping that when she woke up in the morning this would all be some horrible nightmare. But it was a restless sleep. One filled with tossing and turning and visions of that door slamming in her face over and over again.

And as the night started to fall, a knock on the door tore her away from that restless slumber.

"Who is it?" she called out as she climbed off her bed and headed towards the door.

"It's Sam," the voice behind the door replied.

"Sam? Do I even know a Sa . . . Oh! You mean Farm Boy! Of course. Silly me."

But as soon as she opened the door and saw him standing there before her, the air of superiority she'd thrown on to mask the pain of rejection she was feeling melted away. She softened at the sight of him, and she knew that she loved him more than she did that morning when she was confessing her love to him that morning.

"Is there something you wanted?" she asked.

"I'm leaving in the morning . . ."

"Oh, don't leave because of the little joke I played on you this morning," she told him feeling her heart drop. "It was just a silly little joke. You don't have to go."

"There's a boat leaving for America first thing tomorrow morning, and I'll be on it," he replied. "And when I get there, I'll make my fortune. As soon as I have enough for a home and a bed, enough money to put a roof over our heads and feed us, enough money to start a family, I'll send for you. And we can be happy together."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"This morning, when you came to my hut, you finally returned my feelings for you. Everything I'd done to catch your attention had worked, and you finally felt for me the way that I felt for you."

"Everything you've done?"

"Everything I've done has been for you. I've trained myself to only need four hours of sleep a night so I could use that extra time to better myself. I read everything that I could that I could get my hands on because I thought you might like a man with an intelligent mind. I did everything I could to build up my strength and tone myself because I thought that you might like a man with an attractive physique. I always took extra special care to your horse in the hopes that you would take notice and realize what a hard worker I was." He stepped forward slightly and took her hands in his. "And every single day, every single thing I spoke to you, I professed my love to you."

"But you've never once told me that you love me."

"But I have. It was all that ever left my lips. It was all I ever said to you."

"But all you've ever said to me was 'As you wish.' That was your answer to everything."

"You've been hearing me wrong. You were deaf to my love for so long that you were deaf to what I was really saying. Every time I said 'As you wish,' I was really telling you that 'I love you.'"

"But you've never actually said it to me."

"You want to hear me say it? Alright, I'll say it. I love you. Louder? I love you. Would you like to hear it again? I love you. Backwards? You love I. Spell it for you even? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you."

"You're just teasing me now," she pouted.

"Maybe a little, but everything I say is true. I do love you, Rachel, and I want nothing more than to make you happy for the rest of your life."

"I can clearly see that now. And I vow now to never love another. Only Sam. Until I die."

"And I the same for you," he replied. "I should go back to my hut to prepare my things. My ship does leave first thing in the morning."

"Promise you'll write me?"

"Every day. Twice a day even."

"Alright. Then goodbye my love."

"Goodbye," he replied as he let go of her hands and headed towards the door.

She wanted to just wait and watch him go, but soon the words were pouring out of her. "Without one kiss?"

The fell into each other's arms, and he held her close to him through the night. But soon it became absolutely necessary for him to tear himself away from her.

"I don't want you to go," she whispered as he stood up from his spot on the bed. "What if something happens to you?"

"I'll always come for you," he replied as he pulled her up with him.

"But how can you be sure?"

"This is true love. You think it happens every day?" And with that, he pulled her into one last kiss goodbye. "I'll write you the second I'm on the boat. Goodbye my love."

"Goodbye Sam."

It was at least a week before his first letter arrived, but it was filled his love and how much he missed her. He talked of the ship taking him to America, the people he encountered, and everything that he did each day. But mostly, he wrote of how he longed to have her there with him.

The letters came steadily. One letter every other day or so. But all of a sudden, the letters abruptly stopped, and even though she was sure of Sam's love for her, Rachel was convinced that he'd found someone else. Someone who would love him even more than she did if that was possibly.

One week passed by. Then two. And then a third. And then the news came.

She had woken up after a night of sleep filled with dreams of Sam kissing other women and telling those that he loved them more than he could ever love Rachel, so she wasn't in the best of moods. And as she neared the kitchen, she overheard her fathers talking to each other.

"She's going to be devastated when she hears the news," one said.

"She already thinks he's fallen for another. Maybe we shouldn't tell her what happened and let her believe that's the truth instead," the other replied.

"You must be joking. It would hurt her even more to think he was alive and in love with another."

"Well, I don't think we should tell her."

"Well, I would want to know if I was in her position."

"It's just so upsetting. I'm sure they never saw it coming."

"How could they? It's not as if the Dread Pirate Roberts advertises where he's going to be at any given time."

"Do you think Sam might have survived?"

"It's doubtful. The Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners."

That's all Rachel needed to hear before she was running back to her room in tears. Her Sam had been killed by pirates, and she was never going to see him again.

She remembered the vow she'd made to him the night before he left, nd she knew she had to keep it now.

"I'll never love again."

And she never did.