While 27 degrees may seem somewhat unqualified to count as a heatwave, here in Scotland it very much does. For those of you who have previous experience of Scottish July/August weather (the so-called summer holidays), it's as if the sun has planted itself right on the front lawn.

Gingers will die.

My own redhead had been moaning about it non-stop. "Sakes, Gaby," he said last night, coming in from a late shift at the Lochside Welcome, the hotel we joint-owned. A coachload of tourists had descended there unexpectedly, looking for ice-cold lagers to accompany their wood-fried pizzas.

"I feel as if someone's shoved me in a flamin' pizza oven and locked the door."

He peeled off his black T-shirt, treating me to the sight of the tight red curls that covered his chest, the coppery fieriness of them enhanced by sweat. Unlike me, who was still battling the mum-tum Ranald had given me, Jack maintained his six-pack far too easily. As he twisted to put the T-shirt on the chair behind him, the oblique muscles at his waist rippled.

While the unfairness of how little effort he put into maintaining that physique bugs me, it's not that much of an imposition, seeing as I get to gaze at it on a regular basis.

In the kitchen, he splashed his face with water and let his wrists sit under the running cold tap. Through many twists of fate, we've ended up in the house I had first lived in when I moved to Lochalshie many moons ago. It sits on the edges of the loch, next to the Lochside Welcome. Floor to ceiling windows at the front afford glorious views—as they did now. The sun dipped behind the hills at the other side of the loch, the pinky-orange tones of the sky the colour of the most beautiful dress you could ever hope to own.

"How's Ranald? And Evie?"

Ranald was our almost one-year-old, born last July; Evie is his three-and-a-half-year-old sister. Anyone who tells you it's a fantastic idea to have your kids close together is a pathological liar. Evie's latest—and most unwelcome—stage was trying to kill her younger brother.

I kid you not.

"Asleep, thank the uni—"

On cue, wailing started up. I'd tempted fate too thoroughly there, and it had bitten the cherry. As I struggled to my feet, Jack turned off the cold water tap and shook his head. "I'll get her before she wakes the wee man."

He took the stairs two at a time, dashing into Evie's room and emerging with her minutes later. The way they look together never fails to make my heart sing. Evie's hair is that bit lighter than Jack's. Strawberry blonde. She'd stopped crying—the little faker, her smile sheepish as she looked at me.

"Daddy," she said, turning away from me and blasting Jack with full-on 'I'm such a sweetheart' charm to trick him into letting her stay up.

"Why's Donnie upstairs?" Jack asked.

"Mhari's knackered," I said, "spent the afternoon telling me the heat's melting her brain, and she's worried she'll do something stupid to Donnie, so I said I'd take him overnight to give her a break."

Jack broke off from gabbling nonsense to Evie.

"Gaby! That's the second, no, third, time this week. I thought you said you were going to put your foot down?"

Donnie is Mhari's son. The same age as Ranald, he spends his life being passed pillar to post—the post most often me.

"I will, I promise, it's just—"

The washing machine in the kitchen, churning its way through yet another load of Babygros, T-shirts, little dresses and all the other many things small children mucked up the instant they put them on, stopped.

"Blast it. The fuse must have blown," I said, "What an absolute pain in—"

Jack wandered over to the light switch and flicked it on. Nothing. Outside through the open patio doors, we heard multiple doors opening as people spilled onto the street. "Your electricity gone? Aye, same here."

Jack and I met each other's eyes—the blind panic reflected there.

A furious rattling on the front door startled us. The caller didn't bother to wait—bursting into our living room, not so much blind panic as full-on hysteria.

"The entire village is down—and the Lochside Welcome!" he shouted, making Evie cower in Jack's arms. "What the hell are we going to do? I'm supposed to be getting married tomorrow!"

*****

Jack handed over Evie. "Sorry about this, but I better go back to the hotel and see how they're managing there."

Quite. Bad enough for us not to have electricity in our home. Worse, if you were a business.

When Evie objected, he took her with him. The front door closed again, leaving me with Dylan.

"Don't worry," I told my brother, who was pacing the floor. "I'm sure Scottish Power will be out here asap to fix it. They'll send their best engineers who'll shim up the poles and re-attach the wires, and in no time at all, we'll be up and running again!"

Dylan glared at me. "I dunno how electrical engineers and the National Grid works, but I'm pretty sure it isn't like that."

"Yes, well. The gist of it is right. Shall I make us a cup of tea?"

He gave me a duh look—the one older brothers perfect at a young age when their younger, pesky sisters make idiotic remarks. Tea equals kettles, which need electricity to work. I probably deserved that duh.

"Oh well, d'you want a cold beer out of the fridge? Before it gets too warm."

He nodded. When I returned, he'd moved nearer to the window—the light from outside revealing something I hadn't noticed before.

"Dylan," I said, handing him the bottle of the beer, "what's happened to your face...?"

He bolted to the large mirror that hung over the wood-burning stove and swore. Just as well Jack had taken Evie with him as she was at the stage where she'd cottoned onto swear words and loved to repeat them in the most inappropriate situations, such as telling her grandmother to eff off, when Caroline ticked her off (mildly) for not saying thank you.

But yes. On the eve of his wedding to Colm, Dylan was scarlet faced. Like many of the village residents, he'd misjudged the heat of the last few days—assuming the sunshine a temporary thing—and not bothered with any sun protection. He had, he admitted, fallen asleep outside this afternoon, awoken feeling groggy and flushed, gone home to get something to eat before the electricity cut, and then dashed to our house, noticing as he did so that his face, neck and chest seemed somewhat uncomfortable.

Do not laugh... I schooled my features into a semblance of sympathy.

"Don't you dare laugh!" Dylan wailed. Covering up my true feelings has never been a strength of mine. He fastened his hands on either side of his cheeks, Edvard Munch scream like, but the opposite given that the figure in that painting was white. "What are we going to do? There's 50 people coming tomorrow. We'll not be able to cook for them or give them cold drinks. The disco at night... I spent hours on Spotify planning that. Every sodding tune's personal to me and Colm."

He was right. You can't have a wedding without electricity.

"Don't fret," I said. "If the power's out in such a large area, Scottish Power will treat it as a priority. Another hour and everything will be back to normal, promise!"

Too late, I remembered an incident seven months ago when the power cut during a winter storm, and we'd waited TWO DAYS for them to restore it. Dylan obviously remembered, too.

"This ruddy backwater of a place," he muttered, pressing the still-cold beer to his cheek. "Wouldn't happen in Great Yarmouth!"

The world's biggest metropolis. Though perhaps it was compared to Lochalshie. I disappeared upstairs, popping into Ranald's bedroom where he lay in his usual star-shape sleeping position, his nose and mouth performing intakes and out-takes of air, while Donnie snuffled nearby, returning minutes later with my make-up bag. My job as part-time graphic design lead for the make-up company Blissful Beauty meant I got a lot of freebies. They included Green Dream™, a skincare product designed to reduce facial redness.

"Try this," I said, handing it over to Dylan. He took it, squeezed out half the contents, and rubbed them in. The difference wasn't that perceptible (I must let you into a secret; ads for beauty products often exaggerate their effectiveness), but I pretended it was amazing, anyway.

"Much, much better!"

That and the beer seemed to have calmed him down. "Thanks, Gaby. I never thought I'd get married. D'you think I'm doing the right thing...?"

Oh 'eck. Dylan never asked me these kinds of philosophical questions. Most of me was astounded Colm had proposed. I had wondered if I should take him to one side and ask, "Are you sure? As his sister, I'm one hundred percent confident that you're well above his pay grade."

But the big daft so-and-so thought Dylan the bee's knees. Who was I to argue with the path of true love?

"Yes, of course you are!" I said, nudging him. It would be lovely to welcome Colm into our family officially. "And tomorrow when you—"

A door slammed. Ours. Jack, trailed by Evie, her thumb in her mouth, the gesture she did when stressed, stomped into the room.

"The hot weather's tae blame for the power cut," he said, the words giving away his own stress as Jack's Scottish accent grew stronger whenever he was agitated. He pointed at the new housing development on the other side of the loch.

"That lot," he said, "have been ramping up their air-con the past few days heating transmission lines that were already far too hot because of the heatwave, so those lines short-circuited, the other lines had to pick up the slack, they overloaded too and—"

Dylan, his beer already finished, and his scarlet face pinched, interrupted him. "Cut to the chase for God's sake."

"The soonest Scottish Power can hope to fix it is in two days' time."