At the first opportunity, Max Howard left the farm he grew up on near Pink Hill, NC. Armed with 2 years of college from LCC in Kinston, NC and his Real Estate Salesman's license, he moved to Arapahoe, NC wanting to be near the water. It took a year of waiting tables before Ray Brinson gave him a shot at selling real estate and he proved immediately he could sell becoming the top producer as he beat the highways and back roads of Pamlico county searching for FSBO's (for sale by owner). The locals realized he could be trusted and called him constantly, trusting him to handle their real estate needs. He dated occasionally, living frugally, in a very small rental house on Seafarer Road for 8 or 9 years not wanting to get involved romantically, but enjoying casual relationships with each year's new crop of summer waitresses. On one of his forays, he chanced on the house of his dreams and made an offer to the New Jersey couple that had built it to retire in but found it much, much too quiet and tranquil for their lifestyles. They'd posted a FSBO out front and left. He stole it when they accepted his second counter. What followed was like a merry-go-round settling into his new gabled, 4 level home, complete with an elevator, on the banks of the Neuse River at its confluence with the Pamlico Sound, meeting Candi, the girl of his dreams, becoming involved with the Jernigans at Janiero wanting to build a sub-division on their property, and picking up listing after listing in the Oriental, NC area as property values sky-rocketed with Oriental becoming the sailboat capital of the east coast. Now in business for himself, with his marriage to Candi just a few weeks away, tragedy struck knocking him off his heel's leaving him with an emptiness, wondering if it could ever be overcome................