Free Finding Love at Home (The Beiler Sisters) by Jerry S. Eicher Page B

Daett , his face looked like a thundercloud. Apparently he’d put two and two together. Alvin tried to keep the tremble out of his voice. “ Daett, this is Crystal. Crystal, this is my daett , Edwin.”
    “It’s good to meet you,” Crystal said, offering her hand.
    Daett shook it after a brief hesitation.
    Then Alvin said, “We really have to be going.” He took Crystal’s hand and headed for the door. He urged her on when she turned to smile and say goodnight over her shoulder.
    Once he escorted Crystal to her car and opened her door, he said, “Crystal, you can’t come back here. Please understand.”
    “I’m not sure I do,” she replied. “I mean no harm. I’m interested in the kind of lifestyle that produces quality men like you.” She hesitated. “I might even want to become… Amish.”
    Alvin almost laughed, but he thought better of it. He kept his voice firm. “Crystal, you would not be happy here. Believe me. And as for you and me, our former relationship out there in your world can’t be continued in my world. I’m dating someone else now, Crystal, and… ” Alvin paused.
    Crystal hesitated. “I guess she did wait for you then. I understand.” Crystal gave his arm a quick squeeze and then started the car, shut the door, and drove out of the driveway.
    Alvin fled to the farmhouse without a glance at the dawdy haus .
    And now he was barely up and out of bed. There was pounding on the front door. He didn’t normally lock the doors, but he had last night. An instinct from his childhood, no doubt, after all the times he’d been dragged out of bed and his bottom strapped for transgressions his daett had found out about. There would be no punishment this morning, but there would be words said he’d rather not hear.
    Alvin lit the kerosene lamp. The noise at the front door waslouder now, but it stopped when he stepped into the living room. Alvin set the lamp on the desk and unlocked the door. It flew open as he stepped back and awaited the inevitable.
    “Alvin Knepp,” the first words out of his daett ’s mouth were clipped, “I will have an explanation for this. Who was that Englisha girl you brought into my house last night?”
    Alvin sank down on the couch. “I used to date Crystal when I was living in Philadelphia.” Alvin waved his hand in the general direction of the living room window. “I’ve told the ministry about her. I held nothing back in my confession. I even told them about going to a bar and grill with Crystal. That’s when I ‘woke up,’ you could say, and came home. Most people thought it was because of Melvin’s passing, but I’d already made up my mind to return home.”
    “You’ve been with this woman then?” Horror dripped from his daett ’s voice.
    Alvin sighed. “ Nee , Daett . Crystal is more honorable than that. I don’t know about myself in that regard, but we did nothing like that.”
    “But you….you… ” Daett searched for the right words. “Your hands were freely on her, and hers on you.”
    Alvin groaned. “That’s the Englisha way, Daett. Perhaps I learned it out there. They touch the arm… the hand… to show casual affection… to show concern.”
    “Someone who is not your family?” Daett took a step back.
    “ Yah , it is so.” Alvin rubbed his head again. “Is this lecture over now? I have a headache and choring to do.”
    Daett regarded him for a moment. “All I can say, Alvin, is that I’m deeply disappointed in you. If you say you’ve told the ministry everything, and they are okay with your confession, then what can I say on the matter? But as your daett , I say you’re a failure. Oh yah , you may know how to run a farm and make it profitable. That’s something I didn’t do, and the committee let you take over… all because I don’t change my ways. Well, my ways worked for my daett ,and they should have worked for me. They would have if I’d been given enough time to try them.”
    Alvin sat up. “ Daett , this is not