"What the fuck?" I hear Owen mutter under his breath as my brother walks towards us. His arm tightens around me. Is he planning to use me as some sort of shield?

"Oh, come on, Sully - do you think I'm completely oblivious?" Kieran laughs. "You weren't exactly subtle over the years - the Spin The Bottle game where the bottle was clearly not pointing at Mirren? All the questions you would ask about her? And I saw the way you looked at her. The only reason I didn't beat you up was because you were always too much of a pussy to do anything about it!"

"You're . . . Not going to beat him up now, are you?" I ask tentatively and Owen groans.

"Don't give him any ideas," he hisses in my ear. "I could totally take him, though," he adds.

"Believe it or not, I'm actually okay with this," my brother shrugs. "I'm not exactly in a position to judge, after all." A sudden, slightly smug, grin spreads across his face. "I might even take a little bit of credit in getting you and 'Portpatrick Boy' together finally."

Oh my god.

"You knew about 'Portpatrick Boy'?" I gasp.

"Nessa ended up spilling the tea one night when we were drunk, a few years back," Kieran confirms with a nod. "She couldn't remember Owen's actual name, but it didn't exactly take me a lot of brainpower to put two and two together.

"I'd probably have been more annoyed on your behalf, but then I remembered how down Owen had seemed when I ran into him after he'd come back from the Canaries. Especially when I told him you were seeing someone. Like I said, mate," he addresses Owen now, "When it comes to my sister, subtlety has never been your strong suit."

I shoot a glance at Owen, and you'll probably be unsurprised to hear that he's blushing. He squeezes me tighter. "I thought I was smoother than that," he protests.

"Definitely not," Kieran assures him. "Anyway, this information has been in the back of my mind for a long time, so when the girls' holiday plans got cancelled, I thought I might give fate a helping hand."

I was certainly not expecting this!

"Obviously, I had no guarantee that you'd actually be available to take them, Owen - that was just sheer luck - but I was hoping it might be the push you both needed. I had no idea if it was going to work, but after I spotted Mirren hiding behind that plant in reception last night, I had my suspicions it had."

Yet another puppetmaster, trying to push us together. An unexpected lone plotter, at that.

"You sneaky little sod," I say slowly. He nods, clearly very pleased with himself.

"I really am."

"And Nessa had no idea what you were up to?" I ask suspiciously. He shakes his head.

"Not at all. I don't think she even remembers telling me the 'Portpatrick Boy' story, to be perfectly honest."

"So . . . You really are fine with this?" Owen asks Kieran tentatively.

"100 percent. Just don't fuck things up with her this time, or you'll have me to answer to."

Owen smiles down at me, eyes sparkling. "I have no intention of messing things up again," he says softly, and my heart skips delightedly in my chest. He presses a gentle kiss against my ear before he releases me. And once again, I find myself wondering if we really can make a go of this.

I hear Debbie's voice approaching - she really is very loud - so the others must be returning from the viewpoint. So I back away from Owen and Kieran and pretend I'm retying my shoelace. Totally casual, nothing to see here!

"I was wondering where you'd disappeared to," Nessa says to my brother.

"I just needed to . . . check something," he replies, somehow managing to sound several shades of shady, and Nessa's big brown eyes widen as she shoots a glance between us.

I quickly and quietly fill her in as we return to the bus. "I can't believe Kieran set this whole thing in motion," she says. "Although I'm really sorry that I let the whole Portpatrick story slip."

"You did me a favour," I say honestly. "Who knows if I would have ever got a second chance with Owen otherwise?"

Look at me, growing as a person!

Drama over, our next stop is Mellon Udrigle. Despite its strange name, it is host to yet another stunner of a beach, the white sand once again contrasting beautifully with the blue of the water. From our sunbathing position, we also have an unreal view of some of the nearby mountains. Scotland really is growing on me.

I sigh happily as I admire the vista in front of me, and Owen turns to me with a grin. "You really are starting to fall for Scotland's charms, aren't you?" He asks, as if reading my mind in that way he does.

"Yeah, definitely," I admit. My growing feelings for my homeland seem to be inexplicably intertwined with my affection for the guy beside me, though.

"If you think this is beautiful, wait until you see Torridon tomorrow," he tells me excitedly, and once again, I'm struck by his passion for this country. It's so adorable. "And I'll need to take you to Skye at some point; you'll love it."

"Only if you can offer me a discount," I joke. "I don't think I could afford one of your tours full price."

"This one would be on the house," he replies softly. "And maybe more of a one-on-one tour."

That hope of a future for us flickers enticingly once again. We can make it work somehow. I'm just not sure how yet.

We'll need to address that soon.

"You gonna try the water this time?" He changes the subject, pulling his t-shirt over his head, and I bite my lip to hide a sigh of delight. "What?" He asks, catching my smile.

"You should always be topless," I blurt out honestly, and he lets out a bark of laughter.

"Are you coming?" He prompts me, reaching for my hand to pull me up.

"I hope so. Later, maybe?" I raise my eyebrows suggestively. "Oh wait, you meant to the water!"

"You're on fire," he marvels, eyes burning into mine. Then that mischievous smile takes over. "Guess it's time to cool you off." And before I can stop him, he's scooped me up and is tearing towards the water with me in his arms.

"Don't you dare!" I shriek, frantically swatting at him as he runs through the shallows, and the water splashes up on us. "Put me down!"

"Okay." He gives in surprisingly quickly and carefully places me back down. Waist deep in freezing cold water.

"I hate you," I hiss, struggling to regulate my breathing in my new ice bath. This is my reminder that, despite the beautiful weather, I am not abroad right now.

"No, you don't," he tells me, floating on his back. "Not anymore, anyway." He winks, flips himself over, and swims away before I can launch a tsunami style wave of water in his direction.

Considering I was facing impending death over a 200-foot deep gorge just over an hour ago, I'm feeling surprisingly carefree now as I give chase. I manage to catch up with the cheeky imp and dunk his head under as punishment, although I'm pretty sure he let me have that particular victory, rather than putting up any sort of fight.

"You're lucky my contacts didn't swim away," he laughs after he resurfaces, blinking water out of his eyelashes. "Someone else would need to drive us back to Ullapool."

Oops. I hadn't thought of that.

"You look good wet," I tell him, my internal filter having apparently fucked off for the day. Perhaps it toppled into the gorge. His golden gaze darkens.

"So do you." He curls a hand around my waist, pulls me closer. I might be in the coldest water of my life, but suddenly I don't think I've ever felt warmer.

Right now, I think, staring at Owen's gorgeous face, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

And I kiss him.

Suddenly, I no longer care that doing so will effectively "out" us to the rest of my friends. I don't give a crap that Debbie and Michelle will likely break out into a synchronised chorus of "I Told You So"s. I'm no longer clinging on to my stupid stubbornness.

It may have been less than 24 hours, but I'm all in.

And if we're honest, this really has been building for way longer than that . . .