Deborah Bedford was born in Texas and earned her degree in journalism and a minor in marketing from Texas A&M University. Immediately after graduation, she accepted editorship of Evergreen Today, a weekly newspaper based in the small mountain town of Evergreen, Colorado. For her birthday in the summer of 1984, her husband, Jack bought her a copy of the 1984 Writers' Market, and she began to meticulously send letters to every publisher listed in the book. She has also kept the letter from Harlequin Books she received, which invited her to submit a complete manuscript but warned her that Harlequin did not want books about cowboys, airline pilots, guest ranches or Texans. Her manuscript was the story of “a woman who marries an airline pilot in Texas. Then, when he dies in a plane crash, she runs away to a guest ranch and falls in love with a cowboy.” Harlequin bought the manuscript five short weeks after Deborah submitted it. Since then Deborah has continued to write novels, many of which have received awards and appeared in the USA Today bestseller list. Deborah and Jack have two children, Jeff, 18, and Avery, 15. When she isn't writing, Deborah spends her time fly-fishing, cheering at American Legion baseball games, shopping with her daughter, singing praise songs while she walks along the banks of Flat Creek, and taking her dachshund Annie for hikes in the Tetons where they live.